By Vir B. Lumicao
 |
Rowena, foreground, and Michelyn
took a chance but failed to vote because
they're not registered in Hong Kong.
|
As the voting in Hong Kong entered its second Sunday at the Bayanihan Center in Kennedy Town, Consulate officials were wary of the growing number of Hong Kong-based Filipinos who said they registered last
year but were unable to vote.
The daily total it expected to rise again this Sunday. It fell to 366 last Friday, from 434 on Thursday,
despite the weather improving after four days of rain that deterred voters from
traveling to Kennedy Town.
Bayanihan staff counted 428 people arriving at the polling
center as of 3pm on Friday, but not all were able to vote because their names had either
been delisted, or they were registered elsewhere so they could not vote in Hong
Kong.
With 24 days to go in the month-long overseas voting, the
seven-day total of votes cast stood at 6,696 yesterday.
As of 3pm on Friday, 17 people had failed to vote either
because their names had been delisted for not voting in two consecutive
national elections, or they were active voters caught up in a last-minute purge
by the Commission on Elections last September.
Each case of missing name from the voters list was
immediately referred by the election secretariat to the Comelec head office in
Manila for verification
The number of voters in Hong Kong whose names were missing
from the Comelec’s voters list has now reached 147.
Some disenfranchised voters vented their frustration on the
Consulate’s Facebook page.
“Nagpa-register ako last year sa Consulate tapos nagpunta
ako sa Bayanihan kanina para bumoto. Nang i-check sa computer wala ang name ko
doon kaya hindi ako nakaboto,” complained a certain Bing Gallego.
Many more of those who went to Bayanihan were registered in
the Philippines but did not bother to have their registration transferred to
Hong Kong. The ended up rejected.
Except for the missing names from the voters’ list,
Friday's proceedings went on smoothly with no technical problems involving
the vote counting machines.
Meanwhile, some 150 voters who tried to claim their election
IDs had been unable to find their names on the list provided by Comelec.
Several thousand ID cards had been moved from the Consulate
to Bayanihan in the hope that the owners would come and claim them.
Across Victoria Road from Bayanihan, Migrante members and
other political supporters hung some banners on the roadside railing but
collected them after the polls closed. There had been confusion the other day
about hanging streamers after staff from the Leisure and Cultural Services
Department took off the banners and told the supporters they must secure a
permit to display the campaign materials there.
