07 March 2016 - As part of the 30th commemoration of the EDSA People Power revolution, the Philippine Consulate General in New York took part in the Fil-Am Vote launch held in Jersey City, New Jersey on February 27.
The Fil-Am Vote is a US-wide project organized by the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA), the umbrella organization for Filipinos in the United States, with the Philippine American Friendship Committee of New Jersey serving as the event’s co-host. The Fil-Am Vote project is aimed at raising the consciousness of Filipino voters in the US and increase participation in the Philippine and USelections, both of which will be held in 2016.
In his message to the community, Philippine Consul General to New York Mario L. De Leon, Jr. recounted the heroism of Nellie Banaag, the schoolteacher who sacrificed her life protecting ballots during the 2007 elections, as well as the 35 Comelec tabulators who walked out of the Batasan in 1986 in protest over the rigged vote-counting, thus triggering the EDSA People Power revolution. Consul General De Leon further added that it was incumbent upon Filipino voters to honor the spirit of EDSA by taking part in the electoral process.
Consul Kerwin Tate, the Consulate’s representative for the 2016 elections, then proceeded to give a presentation regarding the conduct of the 2016 Philippine elections to the gathered crowd, some of whom had come from as far away as upstate New York and Connecticut.
NaFFAA hopes that the Fil-Am Vote project will be able to reach out to the huge Filipino community in the United States, where there are an estimated 3.4 million Filipinos, with 350,000 Filipino – Americans residing in the US Northeast. The US Northeast also has 26,000 registered Filipino voters eligible to vote in the Philippine elections. END