Filipinos in LA lead the way in OAV registration

MANILA, Philippines - Filipinos in the United States are the top registrants for overseas absentee voting (OAV) in the first month since the registration opened.

As of Friday, a total of 3,791 Filipinos registered in Philippine posts in the US, according to data from the Department of Foreign Affairs’ (DFA) Overseas Absentee Voting Secretariat.

In Los Angeles, 1,707 Filipinos have registered since Feb. 1. Los Angeles has the largest Filipino population in the US, with over half a million settlers.

With this development, the total number of overseas Filipinos who have registered to vote for the 2010 Philippine elections climbed to 20,063.

Meanwhile, Filipinos in China, particularly in the province of Hong Kong, are also determined to cast their ballots in the upcoming elections, with 2,379 Filipinos, mostly engaged in household service work, already registered.

A big disappointment is the Middle East, host to more than two million Filipino workers and dependents. Though it had the biggest number of registrants in 2003 and 2006, only 1,649 new Filipinos have so far registered in the oil-rich region since March 13.

In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), only 524 Filipinos have so far registered. There are about 1.2 million Filipinos in KSA.

Other Middle Eastern cities did not fare any better.

The top 10 cities with the most number of Filipino registrants are Riyadh (KSA), Tel Aviv (Israel), Kuwait City (Kuwait), Abu Dhabi (UAE), Jeddah (KSA), Amman (Jordan), Manama (Bahrain), Muscat (Oman), Tripoli (Libya), and Doha (Qatar).

The number of registrants in these cities range from 382 to 24.

Obamania

Filipinos in the US seemed to have renewed their faith in the ballot after the 2008 presidential elections saw the victory of Barack Obama.

When Obama was elected, about 2.7 million Filipinos were in the US, according to the Commission on Filipinos Overseas. Most of them were in California.

Most Filipino-Americans have been rooting for Obama to win the presidential elections to better their chance of voicing out their concerns.

"The Filipino-American US citizens are really making a history, you know? It’s awesome," said New Jersey-based Susan Dikes, executive director of the Filipino Americans Services Group, on the turnout of Pinoy voters in the US polls.

Below target

Although the numbers seem to suggest enthusiasm among Filipino overseas voters, the Philippine government has in fact failed to reach its target for the month.

With the government’s OAV registrant target pegged at one million by 2010, at least 166,666 overseas Filipinos must register every month until the entire process ends on Aug. 31.

Ambassador Nestor Padalhin of the DFA’s OAV Secretariat earlier told GMANews.TV that the Philippine post in the Middle East did not have enough processing machines to facilitate the application of all Filipino voters in the region.

He also owed the dismal figures to the Filipinos’ infamous mañana habit, or procrastination.

But Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Rafael Seguis, head of the DFA’s Special and Ocean Concerns, was also counting on the mañana habit to work wonders in the coming months as the Philippine government heightens its campaign for overseas voting.

"These figures will increase tremendously as the OAV registration activities in all Philippine Foreign Service Posts [FSPs] intensify in the coming days, weeks and months," he said. - GMANews.TV

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