ELECTORAL SYSTEMS REFORM

9 February 2023
Functions of an election
• Legitimization
• Exercising Accountability
• Choosing Representatives
• Exercising Voice
• Aggregating Preferences
What does an electoral system do?
At the most basic level, electoral systems
translate the votes cast in a general election
into seats won by parties and candidates.
Plurality System
• Plurality system (first past the post,
single-member district plurality, Democracy is often
winner take all) is used for national associated with
and local elections. political equality
• Voters cast their ballots for a single and majority rule.
candidate, and the candidate with
the most votes wins the elections.
Legal Basis
Sec. 20. Proclamation of the President-elect and Vice-President-elect. –
Upon the completion of the canvass of the votes by the Batasang Pambansa,
the persons obtaining the highest number of votes for President and for
Vice-President shall be declared elected; but in case two or more shall have
an equal and the highest number of votes, one of them shall be chosen
President or Vice-President, as the case may be, by a majority vote of all the
Members of the Batasang Pambansa in session assembled.
Uncontested positions & the Principles of Democratic Elections
Position
Uncontested positions or seats are
those with only 1 candidate for the House of Representatives 39
positions. In our electoral system, a Governor 9
simple plurality of votes or at least Vice Governor 7
one (1) vote can ensure a victory Sangguniang Panlalawigan 36
to a lone candidate.
Mayor 200
Of the 18,023 local posts in the Vice Mayor 254
2022 elections, more than 800 are Councilors 274
unopposed.
Unopposed Candidates
• Most of unopposed bets are
from the BARMM, followed
by Western Visayas, CAR,
Eastern Visayas, and 22%

Northern Mindanao
• Of the more than 800
unopposed candidates at the 78%

local level, 645 are male and

187 or 22% are female
Majoritarian System
• A system that require
the winning candidate
to obtain a majority of
votes
• More aligned with the
democratic principle of
“majority rule”
Proportional Representation
An electoral system in which the number of seats won by each of the
competing parties is proportional to the number of votes they each win.

• Closed-list PR (CLPR)  goal of building stronger political parties.

• Open-list PR (OLPR)  parties choose the candidates on their party list

but it is the voters who determine their rank.
Partylist System
Each of the parties contesting an election puts
forward a list of candidates and voters choose among
the parties offering those lists. The number of votes
won by a party determines how many candidates are
elected from each party list, while the order in which
candidates appear on the list (predetermined by the
party itself) usually determines who is elected.
But our Partylist System is peculiar.
Issue of genuine representation of the poor and
marginalized sectors.
Challenges:
Weird operationalization
of the partylist system
having a three-seat
ceiling

Bastardized partylist
Challenges:
• Plurality systems  high intraparty competition  Candidate-centric
• Plurality systems fosters competitions among candidates. Winning
elections boils down to building personalized network of support

Elements to win elections (4Ms):

1. Man/Woman
2. Machinery
3. Money
4. Message
Challenges

The president and vice president,

Governor – Vice Governor, and Mayor –
Vice Mayor posts are elected
separately.
This produces a high degree of
leadership incoherence and
competition between the official
tandem and unofficial tandems
Challenges
• Women representation in politics
• Party-List System Act (Republic Act 7941) could have been a good entry
point for women’s increased representation in the legislature.
• However, the tendency to place women at the bottom or the last spot of
the list from which party-list representatives shall be chosen still hinders
women from getting elected under this system
Women Political Participation and
Representation
Local Government Code (Section 41) provides among others that there shall be
one (1) sectoral representative from the women, one (1) from the workers,
and one (1) from any of the sectors (IP, Urban Poor, PWDs etc)

There is a need to adopt temporary special measures to facilitate gender

equality between women and men in terms of political participation and
representation
Gender Quota
A certain number or
percentage of the
members of a particular
body are allocated to a
particular sex
• Candidate quotas
• Reserved seats
• Party quotas (voluntary
party quota)
• Gender Neutral Quota
Women Political Participation and
Representation
• Provide incentives to political parties who have reach the quota in their leadership
and policy-making structures and roster of candidates (perhaps a 40:60 formula)
• Create a women’s campaign fund for aspiring women candidates
• Provide a rule for partylist groups on the ranking order of candidates following an
alternate female-male listing of candidates
• Create enabling mechanisms on local sectoral representation for the election of
women sectoral representatives in the local legislative bodies
Electoral politics in the Philippines suffer from institutional and procedural
defects that prevent it from becoming meaningful to effective and efficient
governance.
Unlike other proposals on political reforms (shifts to federalism and/or
parliamentary form), electoral system redesign can readily be
accommodated within existing bureaucratic capacity levels of bureaucratic
capacity. At its core, electoral systems reform is geared towards nurturing
stronger and genuine political parties.
We must do all we can to build better democracy that translates our ideals
into actual democratic substance especially to those who most need their
voices to be heard. The strengthening of institutional foundations is a step to
ensuring that democratic systems can become more representative and
responsive.
SALAMAT