The Commission on Election (Comelec) has been urged to extend the overseas absentee voting registration (OAV) until December 31 to provide overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) enough time to register and vote in the May 2010 elections.

Based on the schedule of activities of the electoral body, the OFWs have until August 31 to register in order to vote for next years’ polls.

“As the duration of registration has been shortened from originally one year to seven months by virtue of Comelec en banc resolution, we appeal to our Comelec Commissioners to reconsider the original duration of one year so that our fellow OFWs could register themselves and vote come 2010 elections,” John Leonard Monterona, Migrante-Middle East regional coordinator, said, in a statement.

“Mathematically speaking, with a shorter period of registration (only seven months), it would be hard for the Comelec and OAV Secretariat to attain a considerable number of registrants such as its one million target, given all other factors present delaying the registration,” he noted.

In 2006, according to Monterona, the Comelec gave OFWs a 13-month registration duration, which contributed to the high number of OAV registrants reaching to almost 150,000.

Citing an August 13 data of the AOV Secretariat, he said there are about 175,687 OAV registrants. Of this number, 49,804 are in Asia and the Pacific Region; 33,361 are in Middle East and Africa; 31,808 are in the Americas; and 19,153 are from entire Europe. But in Saudi Arabia, there are only 10,718 OAV registrants recorded on the same date out of the more than a million workers there.

Monterona said that if the OAV extension is granted, about 300,000 OAV registrants will be culled, benchmarking the OAV registrants last 2003 registration or even higher.

He assured that his group will push more OFWs to exercise their right to vote in order to make a difference and effect change.

Currently, Monterona said that a variety of activities have been conducted by Migrante chapters, including massive information dissemination about the ongoing OAV registration.

Moreover, he said that registration was made easy for OFWs particularly those staying in the industrial areas as they were provided a bus to bring them to the Philippine embassies and Consular offices.

According to him, the Philippine Embassy has approved a proposal made by the Kapatiran Sa Gitnang Silangan (Brotherhood in the Middle East), a local chapter of Migrante in Riyadh, to allow the conduct of mobile registration for OAV.