By Leslie Ann Aquino
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is not suspending the ongoing overseas voter registration despite the threat of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
Commission on Elections (MANILA BULLETIN)
Comelec Commissioner Rowena Guanzon said they will continue to conduct the overseas voter registration which started last December.
"There is no suspension of voter registration. It will go on until September 30, 2021 for overseas voters," she said on the sidelines of their planning workshop for the 2022 polls with the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila, Thursday.
Guanzon, however, admitted that the disease also affected the registration.
"In Korea, they don’t go out of their homes anymore," said the COMELEC - Office for Overseas Voting (OFOV) commissioner-in-charge.
For his part, DFA Undersecretary Brigido Dulay expressed confidence that they would still be able to meet their target of 2 million registered overseas voters in the upcoming polls.
"Remember the registration process is almost a year...so we expect that if ever they are unable to register now, they can still do it next month up to next year," he said.
"I think we won’t have a hard time reaching our 2 million target since our kababayans also want to vote," Dulay added.
At present there are 1.3 million registered Filipino overseas voters worldwide.
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