Roxas bewails low OAV turnout

Senator Manuel Roxas said the "very low" voter turnout for the Filipino overseas absentee voting (OAV) for the 2007 midterm elections is disconcerting, GMANews.TV learned Saturday. Roxas told reporters that the 5% voter turnout on the 20th day of the 30-day OAV period is "very low" as against the 65% turnout on the last day of the 2004 national elections. OAV secretariat's 2004 national elections record showed 236,722 of the 364,187 registered Filipino overseas absentee voters cast their ballots. For this year's elections, the secretariat has recorded only over 25,000 of the total 504,000 voters, 20 days into the 30-day voting period. Passing grade Meanwhile, Roxas called the 76.9% average national voter turnout in national polls for the last 21 years as "pasang-awa" (barely-passing grade). Alarmed by the dismal voter participation for over two decades, Roxas urged all 45.5 million registered voters, including 504,000 absentee voters, to exercise their right to vote. Citing Commission on Elections (Comelec) records, Roxas said, the 70.7% turnout in the 1995 senatorial election is lowest in 21 years. The highest turnout was in the 1998 presidential elections with 86.4%. Senatorial election in 2001 got 76.3%. This slid to 74.3% in the 2004 presidential election. "This means that less and less people are willing to go out of their way to vote. This does not bode well for democracy," he said. Roxas said many of our people are disillusioned with the electoral process, adding that promises during elections have remained unfulfilled, and that popular perception looks at politics with derision. "The people do not see our elections as clean, and they expect the same problems of massive cheating, vote-buying and fraud. The challenge for us is to make the May 14 elections work," he said. Pulse Asia 's recent survey showed there are more people who trust the Comelec (32%) than those who do not (28%). But, a whopping 40% are still undecided as to whether they should entrust their votes to the Comelec. Sign of hope Roxas, however, saw a sign of hope in Social Weather Stations' recent surveys showing that 86% of registered voters will surely vote, which is almost 10% higher than the running average of 76.9 in 21 years. Besides, he said, the business sector and civil society groups are now more involved than ever in voter education. "Like the Red Cross, these volunteers should be spared from harassment. Rather, we should see them as guardians of the May 14 elections; hence deserving of our support," he said. We should look at election as opportunity for the people to audit their political leaders; to reward those who perform according to mandate and remove those who do not, he added. - GMANews.TV