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Press Release
Absentee voting
The law will be passed but it won't ease migrants' pains
By Rene Bas
OFW Journalism Consortium
A Commentary
Great news: Congress is sure to pass the Absentee Voting
Law before it adjourns on June 6.
This assurance comes from both Senator Edgardo Angara and
Congressman Jose Apolinario Lozada, Jr., the two legislators
doing most of both the drudgework and strategic moves for
the AV Bill's enactment.
There is no reason to doubt Sen. Angara and Congressman Lozada.
Their words carry a lot of weight. Mr. Angara chairs the Senate
committee on constitutional amendments and revision of codes
and laws. Congressman Lozada chairs the House foreign affairs
committee.
They were the principal speakers at the "Legislators'
Forum on the Absentee Voting Bill" held on April 16 in
the Luneta Room of Bayview Park Hotel - just across the US
embassy on Roxas Boulevard.
Philippine Migrants' Rights Watch (PMRW), a network mainly
of church-related civil society groups actively promoting
the good of migrants and their families, organized the forum.
The objective was to assess the latest situation of the AV
Bill in Congress immediately after various legislative committees
returned from consultations with OFW organizations abroad.
The PMRW coordinators, in their official statement handed
out to forum participants and their opening words as forum
organizers, were critical of the legislators.
They virtually called the congressional consultations with
overseas Filipinos in Hong Kong, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Italy
and the United States a waste of time. These meetings abroad
yielded no new information whatsoever, except perhaps one
item that Sen. Angara pointed out: "The overseas Filipinos,
especially those in the USA, are even more eager to attain
dual citizenship than Absentee Voting."
The legislators found out what OFW organizations in every
city abroad had been trying to tell them for the past 15 years.
"Overseas Filipinos want to vote abroad - right now."
This means at the latest by the 2004 election.
They have given this message to Congress via letters, phone
calls, email and text messages and statements delivered in
formal meetings with the highest Senate and House leaders
as well as with congressional committee members and chairpersons.
In the last three months' consultations, the legislators
saw and heard overseas Filipinos (Sen. Angara says "to
a man") seriously demanding their constitutionally decreed
right to vote abroad.
The legislators gathered exactly the same information migrant
rights advocates - like PMRW and EMPOWER - have been telling
them for years.
"The difference," says the PMRW handout, "is
that most of them wanted to try and get the feel of telling
the migrants [abroad] that the bill will surely be passed
this June."
The PMRW members summed up their call to the Philippine Congress
on behalf of seven to eight million OFWs and overseas Filipinos
in these words:
"Listen (and act accordingly) to the voices of the overseas
Filipinos. Act for them out of your statesmanship and moral
principles, and let's make the absentee voting bill the triumph
of overseas Filipinos and the greater Philippine society!"
The critical posture of the forum organizers, prompted Senator
Angara to urge participants -representatives of the various
OFW organizations, NGOs and civil society groups -- to be
"less combative but instead show their appreciation to
members of Congress for being supportive of the bill."
I agree with Sen. Angara. There is no need for AV Bill activists
to assume the angry posture of a Rambo - or an Al Qaida supporter
- when we should instead be lobbying - persuading - senators
and congressmen to pass the bill. Today's Congress should
not be blamed for the failures of past congresses.
Congressman Lozada cheerfully informed the forum that, in
the House, all the committee work to get the AV Bill passed
has been completed. The next stage is for the bill to be discussed
on the floor. He does not anticipate much debate, because,
as far as he can tell, there is overwhelming support for it.
He told us some of his colleagues raised issues against the
bill in the three House committees that held hearings on it.
Happily, the bill's sponsors - now more than half of the House
membership by latest count -- answered all the questions to
everybody's satisfaction.
Congresswoman Etta Rosales also attended the forum though
she was not billed as a speaker. She gave me a jolt when she
expressed fears that there were still "many problems."
The pessimism of Ms. Rosales, whom Mr. Lozada had earlier
told us was a sponsor assigned to defend the AV Bill on the
floor, caused a ripple of disappointment among the participants.
However, Mr. Lozada managed to dispel the new fears Ms. Rosales
had provoked. Nevertheless, Ms. Rosales' warning about "many
problems" made us at my table resolve not to take things
easy until Congress has really passed the bill and, for that
matter, until President Macapagal-Arroyo has signed it into
law.
We should therefore continue to telephone, email and, by
other means, campaign for the AV Bill.
We should relentlessly petition President GMA so she continues
to use her clout to get the bill passed.
The President has avidly supported the absentee voting cause
from the days when she was a senator. She made her support
clear as daylight -before the TV cameras -- at an MOPC President's
Night dinner last year, in response to my question that expressed
the OFWs' anxiety. She reaffirmed her support for AV in her
very first SONA and again and again in subsequent speeches
and declarations.
The PMRW forum ended with much-needed reminders from the
Scalabrini Migration Center's Fr. Graziano Battistella, CS
who urged everyone to be as vigilant as ever. Filipinos should
not think that if dishonest acts mar elections here at home,
the exercise by migrant Filipinos of their right to vote abroad
would be immaculate.
He also offered this sobering thought: Enactment of the AV
Bill into law will be great. But it will not be a panacea
for all the pains now being endured by Filipino migrants and
their families. - OFW Journalism Consortium
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Press release contributed by:
OFW Journalism Consortium
Contact address: INSTITUTE ON CHURCH AND SOCIAL ISSUES
2/F ISO Building, Social Development Complex, Ateneo de Manila
University,
Loyola Heights, Quezon City, Philippines
63-02-4265953, 4266070 (fax), jopiniano@lycos.com, OFJournConsortium@yahoogroups.com
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