THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) approved on Monday the request of the Office of Overseas Voting (OFOV) in Hong Kong that would allow the sending of the Certificate of Canvass (COC) in Hong Kong without waiting for the results of the special elections in Shanghai, China.
In a two-page resolution, the Commission en banc allowed Hong Kong to send the voting returns to the National Board of Canvassers (NBOC) in Pasay City.
“The Commission resolved, as it hereby resolves to approve the request of OFOV Director Sonia Bea Wee-Lozada, as follows: to modify the En Banc Resolution allowing SBOC (Special Board of Canvassers) of Hong Kong PCG (Philippine Consulate General) to a general Canvass Report as conveyed in advance by the Memorandum No. 220923 dated 12 May 2022 (Ref. No. 768-22),” as stated in the resolution.
“To provide instructions to the SBOC and Hong Kong PCG that in lieu of the Canvass Report, they are directed instead to manually encode the election results for Shanghai PCG as zero (0) to enable electronic transmission of its election results from SBOC Hong Kong PCG to NBOC,” the resolution added.
The poll body said the resolution should have no bias in the future on decisions regarding the state of voting in other countries with the Shanghai PCG.
There are 1,991 registered Filipino voters in Shanghai who were not able to vote because of the lockdown happening in the city due to the surge of COVID-19 cases.
Aside from the Hong Kong PCG which has 93,886 voters, the other posts in China are Macao PCG with 14,653 voters; Beijing Philippine Embassy with 1,113 voters; Xiamen PCG with 640; Chongqing PCG with 192, and Guangzhou PCG with 924 voters.