By Daisy CL Mandap
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| More people were allowed to go up to Bayanihan, allowing the queues to move much faster |
With 15 days to go still in the
overseas voting for the 2022 Philippine presidential election, Hong Kong has
already recorded a total of 35,600 ballots cast. That accounts for 38% of the 93,265
Filipinos who are registered to vote here.
According to Consul General Raly
Tejada, more than 4,600 people turned up at the Bayanihan Centre to vote
Sunday, adding to the more than 31,000 who had cast their ballots since voting
began on Apr 10.
The day’s tally was lower than the
more than 5,000 recorded last Sunday, but still managed to bring up the numbers
at a far higher level than that for the same period in the last presidential
election held in 2016.
Even more surprising was the quick
pace of voting during the day. As in the past two Sundays, a long queue had
formed outside Bayanihan before the polling opened, but it had all but
disappeared by around noon.
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| A long line of voters could be seen shortly after the polls opened at 8am |
This was partly due to the restoration of all 10 precincts with the corresponding vote counting machines in each, unlike the previous Sunday when two of the machines had conked out, resulting in voters having to wait for up to six hours to complete the process.
On the first Sunday, only five VCMs
were in operation in line with a directive from the Commission on Elections that
the Consulate was forced to cut the queuing less than four hours after voting
had begun.
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| PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE |
Apart from having all 10 precincts
up and running, the Consulate also decided to open Bayanihan’s spacious
community hall to voters so far more could go up and enter the polling station,
instead of lining up under the searing sun on Victoria Road.
By around 3pm, even the queues for
voter verification had already disappeared that many people who were campaigning
outside decided to call it a day and headed to a park nearby.
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| PRESS FOR DETAILS! |
“I hope we would see the same voting
trend in the coming Sundays,” Congen Tejada said.
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| This was how it looked inside Bayanihan by around 3pm (CG's photo) |
Asked if he sees the daily tally going up to as much as the 7,000 posted in previous elections, Congen Tejada said all that he is after now is a record voter turnout overall.
“Na
disperse at na distribute na yung maraming botante ng Sundays sa weekdays. Habulin
na lang natin ang total,” he said.
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| Press for details |
(A lot of those who would normally
vote on Sundays had been dispersed on weekdays. Let’s just go for a record
total turnout).
Indeed, this year’s election has seen
a steady stream of people going to Bayanihan even on weekdays in response to repeated
pleas by the Consulate, which has been under pressure to show the host
government that the strict pandemic
restrictions would be observed as far as practicable, even during the voting.
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| PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE |
As a result, the daily tally has
not gone down to below 1,000 so far, unlike in past overseas vote where the
number often dropped to the low three digits on weekdays.
If the trend continues, this year’s
turnout would far surpass the 46,396 recorded in 2016, which amounted to 49% of the 93,978 registered voters.
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| PADALA NA! |
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