Filipinos who are working and living abroad and have registered for the Overseas Absentee Voting (OAV) only have a month to ponder on who to give their votes to. This is because the automated election for the 589,830 registrants is set to start on April 10.   According to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the Commission on Elections (Comelec), they are already busy preparing for this event. One is ensuring that their staff is well informed and trained about the new system. A two-day training for the personnel of the DFA Overseas Absentee Voting Secretariat (OAVS) and the Comelec Committee on Overseas Absentee Voting was held last month at the Heritage Hotel in Pasay City. It was attended by more than 100 representatives of the foreign service in the Asia-Pacific region.

It was the first and biggest training conducted before the automated voting for absentee voters start, according to Rafael Seguis, DFA-OAVS Chairman and DFA Undersecretary.
Expected to attend are over 100 representatives from the foreign service, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, which have recommended the adoption of personal voting.

Also attending are Philippine ambassadors-designate to six countries who will be assuming their posts soon, and two incoming heads of consular posts in the United States.

Representatives from Comelec and staff of DFA-OAVS are also set to travel in America and Spain this month to conduct training on Postal Voting for Electoral Boards of Posts. In the Middle East, they will also visit Abu Dhabi and Riyadh   According to the DFA, "The trainings in these four countries will be attended by over 200 foreign service personnel, more than half of whom will be coming from Saudi Arabia (Riyadh, Jeddah and AI-Khobar)."   Another training for the automated election system will happen on April in Hong Kong and Singapore.