SAN FERNANDO CITY, La Union (PIA) – The Commission on Elections (COMELEC) is now accepting applications for Local Absentee Voting (LAV) for the 2025 midterm elections, with a deadline set for March 7.
According to Atty. Reddy Balarbar, assistant regional election officer of Comelec Ilocos, LAV is a system of voting that allows government officials and employees, including members of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), as well as media practitioners who will work outside their hometowns, to vote ahead of the election day.
“This covers election workers who won’t be around their residential places as they will be temporarily assigned to other areas to render election duties or to provide coverage during the election day; they may apply as local absentee voters,” Balarbar said in an episode of the Philippine Information Agency’s Kapihan sa Ilocos.
Under Comelec Resolution No. 11091, government officials and employees, and members of PNP and AFP, may file their applications before their heads of offices, supervisors, commanders, or any officers who are next in rank.
On the other hand, media practitioners, including the media technical and support staff, may file their LAV applications through the offices of the city election officers for highly urbanized cities outside the National Capital Region (NCR); the office of the regional election director for NCR; and the offices of the provincial election supervisors for the rest of the areas.
For the Ilocos Region, Balarbar noted that the local media may course their applications to the offices of the provincial election supervisors since the region does not have highly urbanized cities.
Application forms may be downloaded via https://comelec.gov.ph/?r=2025NLE/LocalAbsenteeVoting/LAVForms.
However, local absentee voters can only vote for the candidates for national positions such as senators and party-lists’ representatives.
“They cannot vote for their bets for local positions,” Balarbar said.
The LAV voting period will be on April 28-30, 2025, from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
For more details on the rules and regulations of LAV, the public may visit the official website of Comelec at https://comelec.gov.ph/?r=2025NLE/LocalAbsenteeVoting.
Meanwhile, Comelec said they are constantly giving guidance among members of the electoral boards (EB) to prioritize poll workers who will be assigned just around their hometowns during election day so they can immediately proceed to their areas of assignments and render election duties after casting their votes. (AMB/CGCC, PIA Region 1)
