#konektadong_pinoy “The Power of Greatness”

“Everyone has the power for greatness, not for fame, but greatness because greatness
is determined by service “ said Martin Luther King Jr., the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize awardee and a popular American leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement of 1954 to 1968. That movement ended racial segregation and discrimination against black Americans.
It achieved, among others, the restoration and protection of the voting rights of citizens
via the Voter’s Registration Process.

Voter’s Registration Process by Overseas Filipinos was rightly possible with the passage of Republic Act 9189 on February 13, 2003. Popularly known as Overseas Absentee Voting or OAV , the act tasked the Commission on Election or COMELEC as the implementing agency
with the help of the Department of Foreign Affairs through its network of embassies
and consular offices worldwide. In 2004, Hong Kong registered the highest voters turnout at 71% in the OAV exercise, with 64,040 votes of the estimated 89,903 registrants.

The success of the OAV in Hong Kong was primarily attributed to the dedicated service, community involvement strategies and leadership of the then Deputy Consul General Domingo ‘Doy’ Lucenario Jr.

Domingo ‘Doy’ Lucenario Jr., who served in Hong Kong from 2000 to 2004, died after the helicopter he was riding with other diplomats crashed in the northern region of Pakistan on May 8. His sudden demise brought shock and sadness. He was the Philippine Ambassador to Pakistan at the time of his death. His first ambassadorial posting was in Nairobi, Kenya
where he served from 2010 to 2013. He will always be remembered for his role in modernizing the Philippine passport system and making it at par with the best systems globally.

Ambassador ‘Doy’ was a beloved honorable Filipino Diplomat and public servant exemplar who was kind, humble, approachable, caring, generous and with a ‘ready-to- help’ attitude. In a mass organized by the HK Filipino leaders community for him on May 13, one banker, who teamed with Ambassador ‘Doy’ in the 2004 OAV Special Board of Canvassers,
thanked him for the glimpse of greatness he left behind while in the service for his
country, adding a symbolic quotation from Martin Luther King Jr saying “ Everyone
has the power for greatness, not fame, but greatness because greatness is determined
by service “