Pimentel to sponsor bill allowing media to vote before election day

The Senate committee on electoral reforms has recommended the approval of a bill that would pave the way for members of the media to vote ahead of everyone else and away from where they are registered as voters during elections.

Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III, chairman of the committee, said that he would sponsor the bill principally authored by Sen. Manuel Villar Jr. when Congress resumes session next month.

Almost all news reporters, editors and employees of media outfits have always been considered “disenfranchised” voters because they either have to be in the field or early at work on election day.

Most of the time the field reporters would be assigned to areas far from where they are registered as voters.

According to Pimentel, Senate Bill 1198 would accord media personnel the same benefits as the overseas Filipinos through the overseas absentee voting law, thus the bill is called the proposed Absentee Voting for Media Act of 2012.

“It is imperative that this law is passed soonest so as to stop the disenfranchisement of the thousands of our friends in media who had been deprived of their right to vote in past elections because they were assigned to cover political exercises away from where they were registered as voters,” Pimentel said.

The bill covers any registered voter who, by reason of his or her functions and duties as a member of media, including technical and support staff, is assigned on election day to a place other than his or her place of registration.

As such, the bill provides that they may vote in the city or municipality where the office of the media entity is located.

Pimentel recalled that a petition was filed before the Comelec on behalf of media practitioners, asking the poll body to allow them to vote early in the 2013 elections.

He said that even the Comelec has acknowledged the need to allow members of the media to vote early and even outside of their registered areas.

Under Executive Order 157 and Republic Act 7166, otherwise known as An Act Providing for Synchronized National and Local Elections and for Electoral Reforms, soldiers, policemen, and other government employees assigned to election duties are covered by local absentee voting.