Commission on Elections-Davao Region (Comelec-Davao) acting regional director lawyer Gay Enumerables clarified on Wednesday morning, October 25, 2023, that the local absentee voting is solely applicable for the presidential and national elections.
During the AFP-PNP Press Corps Southern Mindanao press conference, Enumerables also reiterated that failure to vote in two successive regular elections authorizes the Comelec to bar the voters in the future electoral process, in accordance with the Omnibus Election Code.
“Baka kase magtaka, bakit wala ang name namin sa listahan, deactivated kase sila because they failed to vote twice and now that we are in Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE). (You might wonder why our name is not on the list, they are deactivated because they failed to vote twice, and now that we are in Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE). Our local absentee voting is only for national elections),” the official said.
In the Philippines, under the Republic Act (R.A.) 7166 the Omnibus Election Code and other election laws and Executive Order No. 157 defined absentee voting as a voting system that allows anyone who is absent from their place of registration on election day due to official obligations to vote in the city or municipality to which they have been assigned, provided they are validly registered voters.
Qualified absentee voters are those who work for the Philippine National Police, in the Armed Forces of the Philippines, or in the media industry.
Based on the 2022 data of Comelec, 84,357 registered voters were allowed to avail of local absentee voting (LAM) in the 2022 national elections, and 1.7 million registered overseas absentee voters were accounted for.
It can be recalled that in September, Enumerables urged the voters to visit their respective Comelec offices to confirm their voter status.
Deactivation of voters could only mean that he or she is sentenced in a final court ruling to be imprisoned for at least one year; he/she engaged in rebellion or sedition; declared to be “insane or incompetent” by competent official; lost his or her Filipino citizenship; he/she is excluded by a court order and he or she failed to validate his or her registration – his or her biometrics were not able to capture.
The manual voting for the BSKE is slated on October 30, this year. DEF