The country’s recruitment sector has proposed an online registration for the four million migrant workers now working in 180 sites all over the world to enable them to use their right of suffrage and make an impact in next national polls.

Jackson Gan of the Federated Association of Manpower Exporters (FAME) said the online registration will simplify the registration of migrant workers and avoid the hassle of travelling and spending.

“In countries in the Middle East where thousands of Filipinos are working, over three million were unable to register since their job sites are located hundreds of kilometers from the registration centers that were put up by the Department of “The Commission on Elections (Comelec) should adopt the online registration to obtain a high turnout of overseas voters,’’ he noted.

Currently, there are almost two million Filipinos in Saudi Arabia, 400,000 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), 300,000 in Qatar, 200,000 in Kuwait and 150,000 in Bahrain.

For the May 2010 national election, the biggest number of registrants with 68,884 are those Filipinos in Asia and the Pacific. The others are in the Middle East and Africa (48, 980), Americas (41,639), and Europe (24, 296).

The Comelec has given OFWs one day to cast their votes for the election of national candidates. OFWs in Mid East countries, however, are only given one day off on a Saturday.

Unless the electoral body uses online registration in next polls, Gan noted that many more OFW qualified voters not only in the Middle East but in other countries in North America and Europe would be deprived of their right to vote and make contribution in the country’s election process.

Citing a joint congressional inquiry chaired by Senator Rodolfo Biazon, Gan said the low turnout in the 2004 elections was attributed to several factors such as shortened (5 months) registration period, geographical dispersal of OFWs and seafarers in more than 180 countries, limited (only 87 polls) voting facilities, limited days off at work, cost considerations and immigrant disqualification.

He urged Congress to enact a legislation that will shorten theregistration of migrant workers.

Meanwhile, the Comelec said it will assign numbers to party-list groups in the official ballots in the May polls.

Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said this will make it much easier for voters as they would only need to remember the numbers assigned to the party list of their choice.

“We will have 144-numbered party-list organizations in the ballots. It will be arranged alphabetically,” Larrazabal said.

The automated system will have pre-printed ballots bearing all the names of the candidates.

The Comelec said the party-list will campaign their numbers but their names will not be printed in the ballots completely.

“It will only be the acronym of the organization that will be put in the ballot and not the whole name,” Larrazabal explained.

Comelec on Friday approved 144 party-list groups for the May 2010 polls.