13 April 2019, Dubai, UAE -- The month-long overseas voting in Dubai and Northern Emirates for the 2019 midterm elections started on Saturday, 13 April, at the Philippine Consulate General. Following the Philippine Consulate’s successful overseas voter registration, there are more than 209,000 registered Filipino voters in Dubai and Northern Emirates who are eligible to vote for twelve (12) senators and one (1) party-list representative.
Philippine Consul General Paul Raymund P. Cortes led the opening of the polls and encouraged overseas Filipinos in Dubai to participate. “We do hope we get a glimpse of what it means to be an overseas Filipino contributing to the greater national development of our country, not just economically, not just in terms of remittances, but in terms of your participation in a very important exercise such as voting. This is the time for overseas voters to tell the rest of the global Filipino communities around the world what or who they think their leaders should be and what strategy and trajectory our country must take as we move forward further into the 21st century,” the Consul General said.
Immediately before the opening of the overseas voting, Consul General Cortes also held a briefing for accredited media, Filipino community volunteers, and poll watchers reminding them of guidelines on the conduct of overseas voting.
The Philippine Consulate will hold the overseas voting everyday starting on 13 April 2019 from 8:00AM to 9:00PM (Dubai time), until 13 May 2019 from 6:00AM to 2:00 PM (Dubai time) to coincide with the closing of the polls in the Philippines. END
