Manila: The 31-day absentee vote for overseas Filipinos kicked off without major hitches on Saturday, reports reaching Manila from abroad said.
Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal of the Commission of Elections (Comelec) was quoted by reports as saying that embassies and consulates have not encountered any major glitches on the first day of the polling.
Larrazabal is currently in Hong Kong to observe the conduct of the first day of the automated overseas absentee vote there.
Read special coverage of the Philippine national elections
The Philippine mission in Singapore and Hong Kong are the focus of attention in the elections this time as these two countries will serve as the test case for the automated absentee vote.
The Philippines' first nationwide automated elections are due to take place on May 10 but the country's foreign missions have started to accept votes 31 days ahead as planned.
According to Larrazabal, they expect positive voter turnout from the 95,355 overseas Filipino workers who had registered in Hong Kong as well as the 31,851 who had themselves listed in Singapore for the absentee vote.
Cesar Florers, president of Smartmatic, the private firm which provided the machines used for the automated absentee vote, said that in Hong Kong alone, they have provided 22 precinct optical scanning machines.
Reports said the process of voting has relatively been trouble-free for the absentee voters as most of them have already listed their choices ahead.
Under the rules of the absentee vote, Filipinos overseas are only allowed to vote for the president, vice-president, 12 senators and one party-list group.
In comparison, their compatriots in the Philippines have more officials to elect: congressional district representative, governors, mayors, as well as municipal and city aldermen.
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Undersecretary and Overseas Absentee Vote (OAV) Secretariat Chairperson Rafael Seguis urged registered overseas Filipinos to vote, adding that the voting in the embassies and consulates would start at 8am (designated country time) and end at 6pm until May 10.
"Our embassies and consulates general are well-prepared to conduct the overseas absentee voting process. Our personnel have undergone three-day training in Manila last February to prepare them for their duties in this election.
"There was also similar training in Los Angeles, Madrid, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Hong Kong and Singapore to further equip our personnel in the different embassies and consulates general of the knowledge and skills for this electoral exercise," Seguis added.
There are a total of 589,830 overseas voters for the May 2010 elections as certified by the Resident Election Registration Board of the Comelec.
Three modes of voting will be employed in the OAV exercise: automated voting in Hong Kong and Singapore, personal voting, and postal voting for other embassies and consulates.
The DFA reminded voters using the personal and the automated modes of voting to bring their passports or other identification.
