DFA: 'Record-high' 550,000 Pinoys participated in overseas absentee voting

Job Manahan, ABS-CBN News MANILA - Some 550,000 overseas Filipino voters cast their ballot for Halalan 2022, a record high in recent years, a Department of Foreign Affairs official said Wednesday. Director Zoilo Velasco of the DFA's overseas voting secretariat said that out of nearly 1.7 million registered overseas voters, some 33 percent or up to 550,000 cast their ballot. "Nalampasan na natin in terms of bilang rin ng mga boto na natanggap natin, mas mataas sa voter turnout na nakuha natin noong 2016 elections. So napakaganda at successful ang ating botohan," said Velasco in a televised briefing. (We have a higher voter turnout compared to the 2016 elections. We already surpassed the number of votes we received that year. It's good that we had a successful elections.) "Masasabi natin na this is a record-high in terms of voter turnout maliban sa noong unang-unang implementation ng overseas absentee voting... In terms of number, ito na ang pinakamataas so far," he added. (We can say this is a record-high in terms of voter turnout, except when the overseas absentee voting was first implemented. In terms of number, this is the highest so far.) The voter turnout in the 2016 elections was at 31.45 percent or 432,706, out of the 1.38 million registered overseas voters that time, based on DFA data. Velasco said the canvassing of votes is still ongoing and his office expects to finish transmitting the results within the week. Most of those who cast their ballots, he said, were from the Middle Eastern countries. The following countries had the most number of voters, based on reports from embassies and consulates: Hong Kong Singapore Dubai Abu Dhabi Riyadh Kuwait San Francisco Tokyo Doha Jeddah Overseas absentee voting ran from April 10 to May 9. Former Sen. Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr. is poised to win by a landslide in this year's elections, getting 31 million votes, based on partial, unofficial tally of results as of 1:17 p.m. Wednesday. Vice President Leni Robredo is in second place with 14.8 million votes. Visit the ABS-CBN News Halalan results page to see the partial unofficial tally of election returns. For other updates, visit ABS-CBN News' live blog here.

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