The Commission on Elections (Comelec) en banc has decided to no longer wait for the conduct of the special elections in Shanghai, China and proceed with the submission of the results of the overseas voting that is covered by Philippine Consulate General (PCG) in Hong Kong.
In a resolution, the Comelec en banc, sitting as National Board of Canvassers (NBOC), said that during a meeting held Sunday, May 15, it approved to instruct the Special Board of Canvassers (SBOC) at the Hong Kong PCG, “that in lieu of the Canvass Report, they are directed instead to manually encode the election results for Shanghai PCG as zero (0) to enable electronic transmission of its election results from SBOC Hong Kong PCG to NBOC.”
“This resolution shall be without prejudice to future decisions on the status of the overseas,” assured the Comelec en banc in its resolution.
The May 15 resolution also modified an earlier Comelec en banc resolution that allowed “the SBOC of Hong Kong PCG to generate a Canvass Report...”
The Comelec en banc issued the May 15 resolution in response to the May 14 memorandum made by Office for Overseas Voting (OFOV) Director Sonia Bea L. Wee-Lozada.
“To date, Shanghai PCG is still unable to hold in-person voting due to the host government’s strict epidemic control policies,” reads Lozada’s memorandum.
“There is also no definite date as to when the lockdown measures will be relaxed, which makes it difficult to determine whether and when overseas voting can be held in Shanghai in the near future,” she added.
Shanghai is currently on lockdown due to an outbreak of the Covid-19 disease.
The Hong Kong PCG covers all of the overseas votings in all Philippine posts in China, namely, those in Hong Kong PCG, Macao PCG, Beijing Philippine Embassy, Xiamen PCG, Chongqing PCG, Guangzhou PCG, and Shanghai PCG.
Lozada cited there are a total of 113,399 registered Filipino overseas voters in China including 1,991 in Shanghai.
The other registered voters are in Hong Kong with 93,886; Macao, 14,653; Beijing, 1,113; Xiamen, 640; Chongqing, 192; and Guangzhou, 924.