VICE President Leni Robredo will promote a decentralized government to spread growth in the country if elected President in the May 2022 elections.
But ahead of that, she will push for the opening of voting precincts that will cater to the workers of business process outsourcing (BPO) firms in Cebu City and the country.
Robredo was in Cebu City Monday, Dec. 13, 2021 to meet with former Cebu City mayor Tomas Osmeña, former Councilor Margot Osmeña and 25 business process outsourcing (BPO) company heads in Cebu City to discuss the opening of three additional voting precincts in Cebu City–one in the Cebu IT Park, one in Cebu Business Park and one in Barangay Kasambagan that will cater specifically to BPO employees.
During a press conference Monday at Harolds Hotel, Robredo also discussed her plans should she win the presidency.
The Vice President said she wants to focus on and maximize the technology, manufacturing, maritime and climate industries.
Robredo also said she wanted a decentralized government in order for the Philippines to promote and achieve equal growth.
She voiced her desire for the government to provide opportunities for Filipino employees to enhance, improve and gain new skills.
“Mayor Tommy was passionately discussing with me his programs for the BPO industry in Cebu and after an exchange of text messages, I told him I was very much willing to write Comelec (Commission on Elections) to petition that Comelec would put up voting places in the three areas that Mayor Tommy mentioned earlier, and to assess what other interventions may be given in so far as the BPO community is involved,” Robredo said.
Robredo said she had joined the former mayor in his meeting with about 25 BPO heads in Cebu, who revealed to them their wish list from the government to be able to help the industry.
“If they do not give the BPO industry a chance to vote, then it will cause disenfranchisement of voters. A while ago, they said it is not enough that we put up voting centers in those key areas. But their request is to give them 24 hours to vote because their timing is different and they go on duty on ungodly hours. And after that, they would sleep instead of vote even if they want to participate in the voting process. And the others, they want to give chances to their employees to vote. However, they cannot because they have clients from abroad who need constant communication and temporarily severing communication lines would disrupt their work. So we will try our very best and we hope that Comelec will see the logic there,” Robredo said.
The Vice President said there were over 200,000 BPO employees in Cebu, while all over the country, there were over 1.2 million.
Robredo said opening voting centers doesn’t need to go through Congress.
“There is something more long term, the executive order regarding absentee voting here.
There are categories that are allowed to do absentee voting like the uniformed personnel, the government people doing election duties like teachers. We can add BPO employees to that executive order and all the other voters that have the same nature of work with the tech industry wherein their time is of the essence,” she said.
Robredo said the workers requested not just additional hours to vote, but “an additional day, like in the USA.”
Robredo said they would also send a petition to Comelec to open additional voting precincts in other parts of the country as well where BPOs abound so that other BPO employees in the country would also have the opportunity to exercise their right to vote. (CAL)