Camille P. Balagtas
People's TONIGHT
August 31, 2002
Drilon assures OFWs the passage of Absentee voting bill
========================================================
Absentee voting bill is a must.
Thus said by Senate President Franklin M. Drilon who pledged
yesterday that the Senate will continue to work for the passage
of bills that will preserve or restore certain civil and
political rights of Filipinos abroad, as he addressed one of the
largest Filipino-American conventions in California, United
States.
Assuring the passage of the said bill before the Filipino
community, Drilon said he will definitely work for the immediate
implementation of the bill as soon as it will be approved by both
houses.
Over 3,000 representatives of community organizations of
FilipinoAmericans in the United States participated in the 5th
National FilipinoAmerican Empowerment Conference in San Jose,
California, which tackled issues on immigration, World War II
veterans, political empowerment, and social welfare.
Drilon assured the more than three million Filipinos in the
United States that the Philippine Senate will continue to craft
measures to honor Filipinos abroad, taking into account their
valuable contribution to the development of the country.
Two pieces of legislation that are of keen interest and
importance to Filipinos overseas are the Absentee Voting and the
Dual Citizenship bills. These measures take cognizance of the
fact that as of December, 2001, over seven million Filipinos or
about 10 percent of the country's total population has left
Philippine shores for purposes of employment, education, or
marriage to foreign nationals.
The Absentee Voting bill aims to rectify the disenfranchisement
of millions of Filipinos abroad - immigrants, overseas contract
workers, seamen, and undocumented residents alike. The bill seeks
to give Filipinos working and residing abroad a voice in
Philippine domestic affairs by allowing them to vote.
The proposed Citizenship Retention Act seeks to allow
natural-born Filipinos who have gone abroad and who have become
naturalized foreign citizens to reacquire Filipino citizenship.
"There is deep and irrational injustice in penalizing
Filipinos who have gone abroad to uplift the lives of their
families and countrymen by depriving them of their natural
birthright," Drilon said.
He noted that this inequity is most glaring in the case of many
Filipino war veterans, who fought for the country's freedom and
then became US citizens in the hope of economic relief for their
families, only to lose their Filipino citizenship.
The Senate chief also conveyed the message of President Arroyo
seeking the help of Filipinos abroad in building a strong
republic. He urged them to continue investing in the economic and
political future of the Philippines
///Camille p. balagtas