International Coalition for Overseas Filipinos Voting Rights (ICOFVR) Press Statement

10 September 2002

There are some 7.5 million Filipinos who, for fifteen years now, have been continually lulled into a false sense of hope that the mandate of the 1987 Constitution for Congress to pass an absentee voting law in their behalf would become a reality.

They have been and still are being grossly misled.

We have had more than our earful of innumerable official and individual pronouncements that do nothing more than pay lip service to the passage of the Absentee Voting Law in time for May, 2004. We have, for fifteen years, been deafened by the collusion by silence, outraged by the inaction and indifference, insulted by the hypocrisy that ensures that the valid issues that surround this bill do not see the light of day, simply because our legislators have not had the decency to even ensure the consistent presence of a quorum on the occasional instance that it is calendared for deliberation.

We, who for fifteen years, have pinned our hopes on that constitutional mandate are being misled, as well, by a political leadership that refuses to exercise the political will to transcend partisan interest and prove by demonstrably consistent and sincere action to see that law into reality.

More than the occasional passing statements in the two SONAs, more than the occasional statements abroad made for the momentary listening pleasure of the overseas Filipino community, more than the occasional gesture that you have not forgotten, Madame President, we need you to demonstrate sincere leadership effort to make good on your word. Far beyond your political future, far beyond ours, our nation needs this law.

We do not ask for favors. We ask our leaders to fulfill the constitutional mandate and pass the Absentee Voting Bill in both houses of Congress, in time for the May, 2004 national elections. Debate if we must, but we challenge our legislators to be there, on the floors of Congress, to ensure that that debate happens. For unless those issues are addressed in a manner and occasion that ensures timely resolution, then all efforts are nothing but empty gestures aimed at placating a growingly impatient segment of our body politic. For indeed, the qualified Filipino voter who goes abroad to seek a better life for himself is no less a member of that body politic than is any other qualified local voter who has to be elsewhere on election day. He is still a Filipino.

The overseas Filipino cannot and will not continue suffering this festering insult of political powerlessness that paints him as an economic hero but a political eunuch, simply because he can send the money but not the vote.

Continued legislative inaction on this bill will serve only one purpose: it will continue to catalyze the overseas Filipino community revolted by the callousness that renders this bill immobile.

And that community will grow, with the appropriate political costs. For if there be any reason to persist, it is the belief that this is the kind of political culture and attitude that needs to be addressed. It has to end.

We do not simply swear an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution; we believe in it. But we challenge our leaders give us back the reason to believe in them because we can trust in their word.