NEW YORK – With the Philippine overseas absentee voting commencing on April 10, OAV ballots and vote counting machines are yet to arrive at the Philippine Consulate General in New York.
After some shipping delays, the first of several boxes of OAV paraphernalia sent by the Philippine Commission on Elections (Comelec) arrived at the Philippine Consulate General in New York Friday.
But with only 31 days before the May 9 Philippine presidential elections, the testing and sealing of the vote counting machines in New York have not yet taken place as scheduled on April 7 due to the shipping delays.
In the previous presidential elections, the final testing and sealing of the vote counting machines at the Philippine Consulate General were done 53 days before the May 9, 2016 election.
Consul General Elmer Cato said the VCMs, overseas ballots and other election materials shipped by the Comelec are still on their way to New York from Alaska, and the rest are expected to be delivered in the next few days.
“There’s a delay. The materials are in Alaska, there’s still in transit, waiting customs clearance … There are delays in Washington DC as well, but we’re hoping that this would be resolved. It’s a minor issue that shouldn’t really affect the elections here,” Cato said.
But for some registered Filipino voters in New York, the delay is not a minor issue.
Grace Bejosano posted on Twitter that she fears voter disenfranchisement and that time is running out for her vote to count. She also said she just wanted to protect the 39,048 votes in the East Coast.
“Well, it really is unfortunate to wake up in the morning to see this tweet from a concerned kababayan … But it’s also unfortunate that there were other insinuations that went with it. We understand that many of our kababayan are really eager to participate in the national elections in May,” Cato said.
“Nakakalungkot nga na mabasa mo na parang kasalanan pa ng Konsulado, tapos mayroon pang suggestion na parang we’re part of a conspiracy to disenfranchise voters and so talagang medyo masakit na makita mo yun tapos nakalagay pa yung pangalan ko.”
For Matt Rosales of 1SAMBAYAN USA, as the representative of the Philippine government in New York, it is the Consulate General’s responsibility to prepare for the elections on time.
“The Philippine government has no excuse … And the consulate here in New York being the representative of the Philippine government, is responsible for the timely – what do you call this – the timely preparation for the upcoming elections? And yes, we’ve seen in the past. You know, this being done in, you know, much more timely manner,” Rosales said.
Cato said the final testing and sealing of vote counting machines may still happen on Monday, provided all the OAV paraphernalia arrive over the weekend.
“We have also assured our kababayan, that once they arrive, we would do what we need to do to make sure that their votes would … That we will do what we have to do to make sure that they would be able to participate in the elections. And we give them assurance that of course we would also be vigilant in making sure that the will of the people is truly reflected in the outcome,” he said.
A virtual OAV town hall with Cato is also scheduled on Monday via Zoom at 7 p.m.
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