By CHERRY JOY VENILES
GARY Garcia has been working as a seaman for almost 10 years—and has been a registered absentee voter for just as long. In fact, it’s as long as Republic Act 9189 or the Overseas Absentee Voting Law, which provides for a system for Filipino citizens working or residing outside the Philippines to vote in a national election, has been in existence.
“But not once,” Garcia said, “have I ever been able to vote while at sea.”
One of the 26,808 seafarers who have registered as overseas absentee voter or OAV, Garcia still remembers how excited he was a decade ago when he learned from an orientation that seafarers and other overseas workers could now vote even if they were outside the Philippines.
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