A good sign

If there are more Filipinos working overseas who have registered to vote for the 2016 national election, this is a positive development as it shows they are concerned over the future of this country and want the right leaders to be voted into office.

The number of active registered overseas voters for the 2016 national elections now stands at 1,301,598, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs Overseas Voting Secretariat.

Since overseas Filipinos are considered to be their family’s bread winners, the DFA estimates that each overseas Filipino can influence the vote of at least three family members. Thus, the 1.3 million active registered overseas voters are roughly equivalent to 5.2 million votes.

 And that, says the DFA, is a definite game changer for Philippine politics.

Of the 1.3 million registered overseas voters, about 550,000 are in the Middle East and Africa, while 250,000 are in the Americas, 150,000 in Europe and 320,000 in Asia and the Pacific. Registered seafarers number about 30,000. Those are figures that candidates should be looking at.

We recall that in previous elections, few overseas Filipinos bothered to register as voters because they could not take a day off from work to go to the Philippine embassy or consulate. But now that they can register online, they can exercise their right of suffrage even if they're far from their homeland.

Candidates for national positions from the president down to vice president, senators and party-list representatives cannot afford to ignore the 1.3 million regstered voters living and working abroad.

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