Fil-Ams assured of vote bill’s passage

LOS ANGELES, California — Sen. Edgardo Angara has assured Filipino Americans here that the Senate would simultaneously pass the bills on absentee voting and on dual citizenship.

Angara, chairman of the Senate committee on suffrage and electoral reforms, gave the assurance at a public consultation here where participants pressed for the passage of the two measures.

Most of the estimated two million Filipinos in the United States have already become US citizens so they would not at all benefit from an Absentee Voting Law if the measure on dual citizenship would not be enacted.

Sen. Renato Cayetano agreed with Angara on the imperative of passing both bills.

"Filipinos here are actually more interested in the bill on dual citizenship than on absentee voting," Cayetano pointed out.

He sees no difficulty in passing both bills because both are "good laws."

"The bill on dual citizenship should be passed because it will benefit the Philippines both politically and socially. It will strengthen the family ties of Filipinos abroad because they have many relatives at home," he said.

He added that Filipinos abroad could virtually decide the results of the Philippine elections because they regularly remit money to their relatives in the Philippines and they could influence these relatives on how to vote.

In the consultations, many Fil-Americans opposed the provision in the bill on dual citizenship disqualifying those who have served in the military or the federal government.

The visiting legislators explained that the disqualification arose from the constitutional ban on dual allegiance, and those who served a foreign government are deemed to have sworn allegiance to that government.

"But renunciation of Filipino citizenship as a result of becoming a naturalized citizen of another country would not be considered dual allegiance," Cayetano said.

During the same consultation, Sen. Sergio Osmeña III said that Filipinos abroad could also run for public office in the Philippines or even have their own sectoral representative under the party-list system.

"The right to vote implies the right to be voted upon," Osmeña said, to the applause of the audience.

Chairman Alfredo Benipayo of the Commission on Elections said that he is not sure if Filipinos abroad could be entitled to sectoral representation.

"It all depends on the law, and the law says that party-list is open only to the under-represented and marginalized sectors," Benipayo said.

Also present at the hearing were Senators Robert Jaworski, Panfilo Lacson, Gregorio Honasan and Aquilino Pimentel Jr., Reps. Augusto Syjuco of Iloilo, Joseph Santiago of Catanduanes and Salacnib Baterina of Ilocos Sur, and Comelec Commissioner Florentino Tuason Jr.