Party-list representation in the House of

Representatives of the Philippines

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Graph showing voter participation in party-list elections.

"Party-list representatives" redirects here. For party-list

representatives elsewhere, see list MP. For the political
concept, see party-list proportional representation.
Party-list representation in the House of Representatives of the
Philippines refers to a system in which 20% of the House of
Representatives is elected. While the House is predominantly
elected by a plurality voting system, known as a first-past-the-
postsystem, party-list representatives are elected by a type of party-
list proportional representation. The 1987 Constitution of the
Philippinescreated the party-list system. Originally, the party-list was
open to underrepresented community sectors or groups, including
labor, peasant, urban poor, indigenous cultural, women, youth, and
other such sectors as may be defined by law (except the religious
sector). However, a 2013 Supreme Court decision clarified that the
party-list is a system of proportional representation open to various
kinds of groups and parties, and not an exercise exclusive to
marginalized sectors. National parties or organizations and regional
parties or organizations do not need to organize along sectoral lines
and do not need to represent any marginalized and
underrepresented sector.[1]
The determination of what parties are allowed to participate—who
their nominees should be, how the winners should be determined,
and the allocation of seats for the winning parties—has been
controversial ever since the party-list election was first contested in
1998 and has resulted in several landmark COMELEC
and Supreme Court cases.
Party-list representatives are indirectly elected via a party-list
election wherein the voter votes for the party and not for the party's
nominees (closed list); the votes are then arranged in descending
order, with the parties that won at least 2% of the national vote
given one seat, with additional seats determined by a formula
dependent on the number of votes garnered by the party. No party
wins more than three seats. If the number of sectoral
representatives does not reach 20% of the total number of
representatives in the House, parties that haven't won seats but
garnered enough votes to place them among the top sectoral
parties are given a seat each until the 57 seats are filled. A voter
 therefore has two parallel votes in House of Representatives
elections—for district representative and for the under-represented
sectoral-party list representative/s. Neither vote affects the other.
Party-list representation makes use of the tendency for proportional
representation systems to favor single-issue parties, and applies
that tendency to allow underrepresented sectors to represent
themselves in the law-making process.

Contents

 1Manner of election
o 1.1Constitution
o 1.2Party-List System Act
o 1.3Contestations
 1.3.1Veterans Federation Party et al. vs. COMELEC
 1.3.2BANAT vs. COMELEC
 1.3.3Summary
 1.3.4Example
 2Issues concerning party-list group nominees
o 2.1Major parties' involvement
o 2.2Ang Bagong Bayani-OFW Labor Party vs. COMELEC
o 2.3BANAT vs. COMELEC
 3Results
 4References
 5Further reading
 6See also

Manner of election[edit]
Constitution[edit]
The Constitution mandates that the sectoral representatives shall
compose 20% of the House of Representatives. For three
consecutive terms after the ratification of the constitution, one-half
of the seats allocated to party-list representatives were filled "by
selection or election."[2] For the 1987, 1992 and 1995 elections, the
president appointed sectoral representatives, subject to the
confirmation from the Commission on Appointments, half of whose
members are derived from the House of Representatives.
Party-List System Act[edit]
 Sectoral
Electio Legislative representatives
On March 3, 1995, n
Method
districts
Underhang
Republic Act No. 7941 20% quota Seats won
or the Party-List R.A.794
System Act was 1998 206 52 14 38
1
signed into law. It
mandated that "the 2001 VFP 205 51 14 37
state shall 2004 VFP 209 52 24 28
promote proportional VFP 22 32
representation in the 2007 218 54
election of BANAT 53 1
representatives to the 2010 BANAT 229 57 56 1
House of
Representatives through a party-list system". The five political parties with the highest number of
members at the start of the 10th Congress of the Philippines were banned from participating. Each
voter can vote one party via closed list; votes are then tallied nationwide as one at-large district, with
the number of sectoral representatives not to surpass 20% of the total number of representatives.
The law provided that each party that has 2% of the national vote be entitled one seat each, and an
additional seat for every 2% of the vote thereafter until a party has three seats. This means that a
party can win the maximum three seats if it surpasses 6% of the national vote. [3]
While the law was first used for the 1998 election, and several parties did meet the 2% quota during
the succeeding elections, they did not fill up the required 20% allocation for party-list representatives
of the constitution. Furthermore, the votes for parties that had more than 6% of the vote were
considered wasted.[4] Ateneo de Manila University mathematics professor Felix Muga II said that
"Any seat allocation formula that imposes a seat-capping mechanism on the party-list proportional
representation voting system contradicts the social justice provision of the 1987 Constitution." [5]
Any vacancy is filled by the person next in line on the list; in cases
where a seated sectoral representative switches parties, that
representative loses their seat and the person next in line on the list
assumes the seat.
Contestations[edit]
Veterans Federation Party et al. vs. COMELEC [edit]
 Party-list results
2001:

In 2000,
the Vete
rans

Note: Majority of the parties were disqualified after the election.

2004:

2007:

2010:
Federation Party (VFP), the Akbayan! Citizens' Action Party and several other parties sued the
COMELEC which led a case in the Supreme Court; the court ruling changed the way how the seats
are allocated for the winning parties. In 1998, only 14 representatives were elected out of 13 winning
parties, well short of the then 52 representatives needed to fill up 20% of the House. The so-called
"Panganiban formula," named after Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban, calculates that the number of
seats a party will win is dependent on the number of votes of the party with the highest number of
votes.[6]
The court maintained the four inviolable parameters:
First, the twenty percent allocation – the combined number of all
party-list congressmen shall not exceed twenty percent of the total
membership of the House of Representatives, including those
elected under the party list.
Second, the two percent threshold – only those parties garnering a
minimum of two percent of the total valid votes cast for the party-list
system are “qualified” to have a seat in the House of
Representatives;
Third, the three-seat limit – each qualified party, regardless of the
number of votes it actually obtained, is entitled to a maximum of
three seats; that is, one “qualifying” and two additional seats.
Fourth, proportional representation – the additional seats which a
qualified party is entitled to shall be computed “in proportion to their
total number of votes.”
The court came up with the following procedure on how to
determine how many seats a party wins. First, the party with the
highest number of votes gets at least one seat. It can win additional
seats for every 2% of the national vote until it reaches the three-
seat limit.
Therefore:

where:

 TPs is the number of seats of the top party.

 g is the percentage of votes garnered by the sectoral
organization,
For the other parties surpassing the 2% threshold, they all
automatically win one seat; additional seats will be won
according to the following formula.
:
where:

 S is the number of seats

 PV is the votes for the party
 TP is the votes of the top party.
 TPs is the number of seats of the top party.
 The product, disregarding integers, is the number of
additional seats for the party.
Prior to the adopting the "Panganiban formula," the court
considered applying the Niemayer formula used in the
allocation of seats in the German Bundestag. However,
since R.A. 7941 limits the maximum number of seats for
each party to three, of the existence of a 2% quota, and
that 20% of the seats can be filled up, the court instead
devised the formula above to ensure that the 20%
allocation for sectoral representatives would not be
exceeded, the 2% threshold will be upheld, the three-seat
limit enforced and the proportional representation be
respected.[7] The formula was first used in determining the
result of the 2001, and was first applied in the 2004
elections.
The use of this formula by the COMELEC had been labeled
by certain groups as to "annihilate independent voices in
the House," according to Akbayan representative Etta
Rosales.[8] The court upheld this in subsequent cases, such
as the Partido ng Manggagawa vs.
COMELEC and Citizens' Battle Against Corruption vs.
COMELEC.[9]
Panganiban in 2010 remarked in a lecture at the Ateneo
Law School that "It’s very complicated and there must be
an easier formula to compute," adding that the party-list law
has to be amended by Congress.[10]
BANAT vs. COMELEC[edit]
In 2007, another party-list group, the Barangay Association
for National Advancement and Transparency (BANAT,
now Barangay Natin!) sued the COMELEC for not
proclaiming the full number of party-list representatives
(they were not among on those who were proclaimed
winners). As with the other cases, the Supreme Court
condensed all the cases to one case. The court ruled on
April 21, 2009 that the 2% election
threshold unconstitutional, and stipulated that for every four
legislative districts created, one seat for sectoral
representatives should be created; this thereby increased
the sectoral seats in the 14th Congress from 22 to 55; the
Supreme Court, however, upheld the 3-seat cap.[11]
To determine the number of seats for sectoral
representatives, the formula for the quotient is: 
where:

 S is the number of seats allocated for sectoral

representation,
 D is the total number of district representatives, and
 D / 0.8 is the total number of members of the House.
 To get the first guaranteed seat, a sectoral party or
organization should at least get 2% of the total votes
cast for partly list elections. The formula for the quotient
is: 
where:

 g is the percentage of votes garnered by the sectoral

organization,
 P is the total number of votes gained by the sectoral
organization, and
 V is the total number of votes cast in the party list
representation election.
Therefore: 
If the total number of guaranteed seats awarded is
less than the total number of seats reserved for
sectoral representatives (S), the unassigned seats
will awarded in the second round of seat allocation.
To get the number of additional seats, this formula
will be followed. 
where:
  is the total number of additional seats awarded to the
sectoral organization,
 S is the number of seats allocated for party-list
representatives,
  is the total number awarded seats  in the first round of seat
allocation, and
 g is the percentage of votes garnered by the sectoral
organization.
Note:  should appear as whole integer.
If the total number of seats awarded after two
rounds is still less than the total number of
seats reserved for sectoral representatives (S),
the remaining seats will be assigned to sectoral
organizations next in rank (one seat each
organization) whose  result is 0 until all
available seats are completely distributed. 
where:
  is the total number of sectoral organizations next in rank (in
Round 2) to be given with one seat,
 S is the number of seats allocated for party-list
representatives,
  is the total number awarded seats in the first round of seat
allocation, and
  is the total number awarded seats in the second round of
seat allocation.
 This is essentially a Hare quota, with the
following exceptions:

 The 2% election
threshold automatically awards parties
one seat; this means that the total
seats that will be disputed is the
difference of the number of party-list
seats and the number of parties that
surpassed the threshold.
 The fractional remainder is
disregarded. The seats that could've
been distributed from the fractional
remainders are given to parties that
quotas less than 1 after the threshold.
 The party cannot win more than three
seats. With the large number of parties
contesting, this means the share of the
votes the parties get are small—in
2010, the party with the most votes
(Ako Bicol Political Party) won 5.20%
of the vote—the only way a
party's votes can be wasted is if its
quota after the threshold is 4 or more.
This can be affected if several parties
surpassed the threshold (thus
lessening the number of seats to be
distributed), or if a party wins via a
landslide. In 2010, AKB's quota after
threshold was 2.33, or, disregarding
decimals, 2. This entitled them to 2
additional seats aside from the
automatic 1 seat they've won by
surpassing the threshold.
Senator Joker Arroyo criticized the ruling of
the Supreme Court, saying that the court
"overreached itself and engaged in judicial
legislation." Arroyo later compared with
parties with between "155,000 to 197,000
votes... a measly 1 percent to 1.24 percent
of the votes" to a city which needs a
population of 250,000 or more to obtain its
own legislative district.[12]
Summary[edit]

Method First seat Second seat Third seat

R.A. 7941 2% of vote 4% of vote 6% of vote

 Party with most Party with most
votes: 4% of the votes: 6% of the
vote vote

VFP vs. Other parties: Total votes divided by

2% of the vote
COMELEC votes of the party with most votes;
quotient will be multiplied by the
number of seats the party with the
most votes have. Product,
disregarding decimals, is the number
of seats.

2% of the vote

BANAT vs. If quota has not been Hare quota, without decimals, from
COMELEC met, parties with less the seats that are not yet allocated.
than 2% of the
preferences will get
one seat until quota
is met.

Example[edit]
In 2010, there are 57 party-list seats being
contested, with 29,311,294 valid votes
cast, and 12 parties having at least 2% of
the vote.
Ako Bicol Political Party topped the vote,
receiving 1,524,006 votes or 5.20% of the
vote.

 First round:

 Second round:
Disregarding decimals, 

 Both rounds:

 Hence, AKB
won three
seats in the
House of
Representativ
es.
 Akbayan Citizens'
Action
Party received
1,061,947 votes
or 3.62% of the
vote.

 First round:

 Second
round:
Disregarding decimals, 

 Bo
th
ro
un
ds
:

 He
nc
e,
Ak
ba
ya
n
wo
n
tw
o
se
ats
in
th
e
Ho
us
e
of
Re
pr
es
en
tati
ve
s.
Alaga
d rece
ived
227,2
 81 or
0.78%
of the
vote.

 Fir
st
ro
un
d:

 Secon
d
round:
At this
point,
35
seats
have
alread
y been
award
ed.
Disregarding decimals, 

 Both rounds

 However, no
been distribu
Alagad won
House of Re

Issues con
party-list g
nominees[e
Major parties
involvement[
While the party-
been used by so
that have not be
participate in go
order to have a
Congress, allega
leaning party-lis
state that severa
used as fronts b
President Gloria
Arroyo's ruling a
to further its inte
such as 1-UTAK
representing tra
and PACYAW, w
advocate athlete
personnel, have
officials for nom
first nominee of 
Pinoy, for instan
claiming to repre
guards and tricy
was former Pam
district represen
Arroyo, the son
president; Arroy
through Ang Ga
the 2010 electio
On the other han
disqualification c
brought up again
leaning parties i
Alyansang Maka
Patriotic Alliance
including Bayan
First), Kabataan
list (Youth Party
list), GABRIELA
Party, and Anak
case alleged tha
personalities in t
were merely pur
"ideological obje
Congress to sup
outlawed Comm
the Philippines'
overthrowing the
through "bloody
Ang Bagong
OFW Labor P
COMELEC[ed
In 2002, the Sup
ruled in Ang Bag
OFW Labor
Party represent
its Secretary-G
MOHAMMAD O
FAJARDO vs. C
nominees "must
citizens belongin
marginalized an
unrepresented s
organizations an
the constitution
give genuine po
people, not only
law to those who
life, but more so
them to become
lawmakers them
BANAT vs.
COMELEC[ed
In the same BAN
COMELEC case
while the ponen
pointed out that
1987 Constitutio
7941 prohibits m
parties from par
party-list election
emphasized tha
so by establishin
coalitions with s
organizations fo
political purpose
Associate Justic
Carpio noted tha
necessary that t
organization's n
in poverty, desti
infirmity' as ther
status required b
law."[17] This effe
anyone to be no
party participatin
list election.
However, by a v
Supreme Court
continue disallow
political parties f
participating in t
elections, directl

Results[edit

#1
Year
Party
 1998 APEC

Bayan
2001
Muna

Bayan
2004
Muna

2007 Buhay

Ako
2010
Bikol

2013 Buhay

Ako
2016
Bikol

References
1. ^ "SC shakes
verdict".
2. ^ "CONSTITU
LEGISLATIVE
DEPARTMEN
Elections. 200
from the origi
Retrieved  201
3. ^ "REPUBLIC
ACT PROVID
ELECTION O
REPRESENT
THE PARTY-
APPROPRIA
THEREFOR"
Elections. 200
from the origi
Retrieved  201
4. ^ Rosario Bra
11-09). "Shou
 List System?"
Retrieved  201
5. ^ Ordoñez, E
02). "'Reduct
absurdum'". T
Archived from
2011-08-11. R
14.
6. ^ Dizon, Nikk
02). "Dilemm
formula delay
proclamation"
Inquirer. Arch
original  on 20
Retrieved  201
7. ^ "Veterans F
vs. COMELEC
the Philippine
11-29.
8. ^ Dizon, Nikk
05). "Only Bu
seats".  Philip
Archived from
2012-10-09. R
30.
9. ^ "Mechanism
representatio
Inquirer. 2009
from the origi
Retrieved  201
10. ^ Legaspi, An
19). "Ex-SC c
need to amen
law". GMANe
Retrieved  201
11. ^ Panganiban
25). "Party-lis
imponderable
Inquirer. Arch
original  on 20
Retrieved  201
12. ^ Arroyo, Jok
28). "Suprem
legislation".  M
Retrieved  201
13. ^ Calonzo, An
27). "'Arroyo
to win as Hou
Speaker'".  GM
Retrieved  201
14. ^ "SC: It's fina
represent tric
Congress". G
02-27. Retriev
15. ^ "Disqualifica
list groups ey
2010-01-16. R
14.
16. ^ Panganiban
06). "Another
Comelec". Ph
Inquirer. Arch
original  on 20
Retrieved  201
17. ^ "BANAT vs
COMELEC". 
Philippines. 2
Retrieved  201

Further rea
 Veterans Fe
et. al. vs. CO
the 2%-4%-6
seats as unc
replacing it w
where the nu
won depend
the party tha
 Ang Bagong
Labor Party
on which pa
participate in
election.
 Barangay As
National Adv
Transparenc
COMELEC,
2% threshol
unconstitutio
the use of th
quota in dete
number of s
still allowing
 Atong Pagla
COMELEC,
participation
election of m
long as they
wings of it, s
distinct from
party, and is
latter via a c
agreement.

See also[ed
 Methods of dete
winners in party
proportional rep

 Highest ave
o D'Hondt met
o Sainte-Lagu
 Largest rem
o Hare quota
o Droop quota
o Imperiali quo
Categories: 
 Party-list
representati
House of
Representat
Philippines
 Party-list pro
representati
 House of
Representat
Philippines
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