16 May 2016 - Philippine Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva, Ambassador Cecilia B. Rebong, reported to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) that the Philippine Mission/Philippine Consulate General in Geneva reached another milestone in overseas voting with the 68% voter turnout that was achieved during the month-long overseas voting period from April 09 to May 09.

A total of 1588 of 2334 registered overseas Filipino voters in Geneva and Vaud were able to exercise their right to vote.

“This electoral milestone was achieved with the dedicated team efforts of all the Mission/Consulate personnel working together to reach out to and encourage registered overseas Filipino voters in the Cantons of Geneva and Vaud to exercise their right to vote,” said Ambassador Rebong.

Consul General Enrico T. Fos explained, “All of us at the Mission/Consulate actively campaigned using all available means of communications to connect to the registered voters to encourage them to vote.”

“We went all out and it paid off. We sent email messages, posted regular updates on the Consulate’s Facebook account and on the Mission website, requested Filipinos and other Asian stores and money remittance centers to display our overseas voting announcements, distributed flyers every weekend at various church services, spoke at community social gatherings, convened Filcom leaders meetings, and during the last days of the election period, we even sent individual text messages to those who have not yet voted to remind them to vote. We did all of these to persuade our kababayans to exercise their right to vote and be part of the democratic process of selecting our country’s leaders,” recounted Consul General Fos.

There are some 6,000 Filipinos, including children and minors, who are domiciled in Cantons Geneva and Vaud in Switzerland.  END