RP seeks approval for mobile voters registration in KSA

MANILA, Philippines — Philippine officials in Saudi Arabia have appealed to the host government to allow mobile absentee-voter (OAV) registration drives for Filipino workers based there.

Online news site Arab News (www.arabnews.com) reported Thursday that Philippine Ambassador Antonio Villamor is waiting to see if the Saudi government would allow the arrangement.

"If they don't agree then we have to follow the rule that registration will be conducted (only) at the embassy premises," Villamor said.

Villamor appealed to Saudi authorities to allow mobile units to be present "in places where there are big concentrations of OFWs, so that there would be more OFWs who could register."

He said that if permission is denied, OFWs wanting to vote in 2010 will have to register at either the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh or the Consulate in Jeddah.

Villamor said holding the registration at the embassy in Riyadh and the consulate in Jeddah only would exclude many OFWs who would be unable to make the trip to these two locations.

Meanwhile, members of the PPP (Pangmundong Partidong Pilipino/Global Filipino Party) met Tuesday with officials from the Philippine Embassy to discuss the forthcoming voter registration drive, rescheduled to start Feb. 1 from Dec. 1.

The forum, attended by Vice Consul and Third Secretary Roussell Reyes, along with about 50 PPP members from Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam and Al-Khobar, discussed the launching of an election-awareness and registration campaign.

"But while the PPP will help drum up interest among OFWs to go out and register on Feb. 1, 2009, its members will not be in any way involved in the actual voting in 2010. They will assist only as members of their respective community groups," said Carlito Astillero, president of the Riyadh chapter of the PPP.

Astillero said that the meeting was conceived to avoid the relatively low turnout of voters in 2007, which was blamed on lack of awareness. - GMANews.TV

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

UP Diliman Professors Share Scientists’ Procurement Struggles at Senate Hearing

By Harvey Sapigao Senate hearing of the revised procurement law (Photo credit: Senate of the Philippines) College of Science (CS) Dean Giovanni Tapang held up a little white device as he finished his presentation. “This is a ₱150,000 component,” he described. “Isa lang gumagawa nito sa buong mundo, pero ang hirap pilitin sila na magregister sa PhilGEPS,” he continued, referring to the requirement that foreign companies must first register to the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (PhilGEPS) before they can sell products to local scientists. Marine Science Institute (MSI) Deputy Director Dr. Irene Rodriguez explained that the small device is a resin that filters metals in water. “May budget tayo,” she said, “pero ang problema ko ay ‘yung resin na ito.” This and other bottlenecks brought about by the procurement law, or the Government Procurement Reform Act (RA 9184), slow down research and development in the country. UPD leaders were invited to the Senate he
Read more

Russia captures town after 2 years of Ukrainian resistance --- Reuters

Russian forces now control 98.5% of Luhansk, 60% of Donetsk MOSCOW: Russian troops on Wednesday took charge of the eastern Ukrainian town of Vuhledar, a bastion that had resisted intense attacks since Russia launched its full-scale assault in 2022. The advance of Moscow's forces, which control just under a fifth of Ukraine, has underlined Russia's vast superiority in men and materiel as Ukraine pleads for more weapons from the Western allies that have been supporting it. Ukraine's eastern military command said it had ordered a pullback from the hilltop coal mining town to avoid encirclement by Russian troops and "preserve personnel and military equipment". The Russian defense ministry did not mention Vuhledar in its daily battlefield report. Russian Telegram channels, however, published video of troops waving the Russian tricolor flag over shattered buildings. The town, which had a population of over 14,000 before the war, has been devastated, with Soviet-era
Read more

Vietnam condemns China's 'brutal behavior' in fisher attack ---- Agence France-Presse

HANOI, Vietnam — Vietnam's foreign ministry condemned on Wednesday China's "brutal behavior" during a violent attack on Vietnamese fishers in the disputed South China Sea. The 10 fishermen were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars' worth of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands -- an archipelago in the resource-rich waterway claimed by China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei. Vietnam "resolutely protests the brutal behavior of Chinese law enforcement forces against Vietnamese fishermen and fishing vessels operating in the Hoang Sa archipelago of Vietnam", foreign ministry spokesperson Vietnam Pham Thu Hang said in a statement, using the Vietnamese term for the Paracel Islands. "The above actions of Chinese law enforcement forces seriously violated Vietnam's sovereignty" over the archipelago, the statement said. Four of the Vietnamese crew were taken to hospital on Monday
Read more