By MARK JOSEPH UBALDE
A DAY before the monthlong overseas absentee voting (OAV) closes, only 22 percent of the almost 600,000 registered voters have participated in the polls, the Commission on Elections reported Sunday.
Comelec Commissioner Armando Velasco, head of the poll body’s OAV committee, said Filipinos in Hong Kong are still the most active participants in the national elections with 35,000 already casting their votes. There are 95, 355 registered Filipino voters in the former British colony.
While the voter turnout in Hong Kong, which like Singapore, has the first crack at automated polls, seems high, the current figures are a far cry from the 2004 presidential elections. About 65,000 Filipinos or 66 percent of the registered voters at that time in Hong Kong participated in the elections.
About 64 percent of all registered Filipinos in various Philippine posts worldwide voted in the 2004 polls.
Velasco also reported that 22 percent of the 31,851 registered voters in Singapore have cast their votes.
Foreign Affairs undersecretary and OAV Secretariat chair Rafael Seguis, however, remains optimistic that a surge of Filipinos will show up on Monday, the last day of the voting process.
“Our embassies and consulates general are well-prepared to receive the expected large number of voters who will cast their votes, even at the last minute,” he said in a statement.