Overseas Filipino workers who want to participate in the 2010 presidential elections may have to wait a little longer to register after the Commission on Elections reset the original schedule for the registration for absentee voting two months later due to minor technical hitches.

Comelec Chairman Jose Melo said the poll body already passed a resolution rescheduling the start of the overseas absentee voting registration from Dec. 2, 2008 to Feb. 1, 2009.

Melo said the Comelec opted to move the registration to a later date because the necessary data capturing machines have yet to be delivered to some foreign posts. Some data capturing machines are also defective and undergoing repair, he added.

With this development, the registration date for OAV will be shortened to just seven months.

But even with the shortened registration period, the Comelec hopes to register at least a million OFWs from various countries abroad.

Gina Esguerra, newly elected Secretary General of Migrante International, meanwhile said the delayed registration of OFWs could be a deliberate move by the Arroyo administration to disfranchise Filipino migrants.

The group is now preparing for a global petition to protest the Comelec’s resetting of the OAV list up, to call for a massive election information drive among Filipino migrant workers, and the setting up of satellite OAV registration sites even in the remotest areas where OFWs congregate.  

“While we harbor no illusions that the current electoral system can deliver us from the horrendous conditions we suffer from abusive employers abroad and from this criminally negligent government, we vow to fight for our right to suffrage as overseas absentee voters so we can at least junk Arroyo and her allies by way of the ballot and beat them at their own game,” Esguerra said.  

Migrante said, a total of 361, 231 land based and sea based OFWs registered to vote for the 2004 elections.

However, only 65 percent turned out and actually voted. For the 2007 polls, meanwhile; 503, 894 registered for the OAV but only had a miniscule 16 percent voters turn out.