By JOSEPH G. LARIOSA

(© 2009 Journal Group Link International)

“Let Us Register and Vote,” Overseas Filipino Asks Philippine Supreme Court

C HICAGO, Illinois (JGLi) – A Filipino residing in Boston, Massachusetts, filed a class action suit Thursday (Feb. 18) in Manila, asking the Philippine Supreme Court to let her and many other Overseas Filipinos register so they can still vote in the coming May 10 presidential elections.

In a 31-page petition for certiorari filed by her lawyers, Maritess Salientes Bloom of Boston and Makati City, asked the High Court to reverse the Commission on Elections ruling, reducing the period of voting of Overseas Absentee Filipinos (OAF’s) by 28 days, which violated the mandate of Philippine Congress.

Bloom said that when the Comelec denied her petition last Jan. 19 to let her and other Overseas Filipinos register and vote in the upcoming elections, the Comelec exercised “grave abuse of discretion” and violated the “equal protection clause of the Constitution.”

Bloom, assisted by Attorneys Norberto Caparas, Jr. and Sedfrey M. Candelaria, told the court that Republic Act 9189 or “The Overseas Absentee Voting Act of 2003” passed by Congress fixed the period of voting by overseas Filipinos at “280 calendar days before the day of elections. For succeeding elections, the Commission shall provide for the period within which applications to register must be filed …”

Last May 10, 2008, Bloom said the Comelec promulgated Resolution 8458, "setting the deadline for the filing of application for registration of overseas absentee voters on 31 August 2009, or 308 days before the 10 May 2010 elections.”

Instead of fixing the deadline of registration of Overseas Filipinos on Sept. 28, 2009, and not Aug. 31, 2009, to conform with the “280-day prohibitive period” set by Congress, the Comelec “effectively deprived millions of the voting population 28 days of opportunity to register” and “causing their disenfranchisement.”

In cutting short the period of registration of Overseas Filipinos by 28 days, the Comelec said “there is already less” “amount of time left” to prepare for the implementation of “the nationwide automated election system” and to “grant the petition at this point in time would wreak (sic) havoc to (sic) the Commission’s over-all preparations” for the coming elections.

Not so, Bloom said, citing the ruling of Supreme Court in Kabataan Party-List vs. Comelec that “Congress has determined that” the Comelec only needs “120 days before a regular election and 90 days before a special election” to prepare for the coming elections.

B loom argued that while R.A. 9189 granted overseas absentee voters to register “until 30 September 2003” to let them vote in the 2004 presidential elections, the Comelec Resolution 8458 shortened the registration of overseas Filipinos for the 2010 presidential elections “on 31 August, 2009, a declared national holiday” that further shortened the Overseas-Filipino registration as “all Philippine embassies and consulates” “would, therefore, be closed on the last day of registration.”

She said the “28-days short of the 280-day prohibitive period granted” to 2010 voters compared to longer period for "2004 overseas absentee voters” may be “fair and impartial on its face.” But “it will still violate equal protection if it is administered with an evil eye and an uneven hand, so as to unjustly benefit some and prejudice others.”

In asking the High Court to declare the Comelec “to have committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction when it denied overseas absentee voters the additional period of 28 days,” Bloom said “the right of suffrage, which is a fundamental right in a democratic and republican government must be treated as a higher right than the power of the Comelec to regulate the conduct of elections.”

Supporting Bloom in her petition are Attorneys Loida Nicolas Lewis and Rodel Rodis and Alex Esclamado of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations. (lariosa_jos@sbcglobal.net)

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