Final draft of absentee voting bill taking shape

The legislative committee finalising the absentee voting bill has agreed to include a provision that will allow votes to be counted immediately abroad.

Senator Edgardo Angara, chairman of the Senate Committee on Constitutional Amendments, said legislators working on the final draft have agreed to incorporate this provision following a clamour from overseas Filipino workers whom they consulted on the issue.

Angara led a delegation from the House of Representatives and the Senate that met about 1,000 OFWs at the Philippine Embassy last week in Riyadh, the fourth leg of public consultations on the proposed absentee voting law.

The consultation on the absentee voting law had taken legislators to Hong Kong, Tokyo and Dubai where there are high concentrations of Filipinos. According to Angara, Filipinos abroad had raised concerns that their votes would be tampered with.

The planned implementation of the absentee voting law by 2004 will be the country's first attempt at allowing seven million overseas Filipinos, who were disenfranchised in previous polls, to vote.

Filipinos are expected to vote their next president by 2004 as well as 12 senators.