By James Jimenez
One of the most misunderstood, or at least not understood enough, parts of Philippine elections is the Party-List system. For my twenty-odd years in the Commission on Elections – 18 of those years spent as Spokesperson of the COMELEC – we constantly harped on the need for more public comprehension of what the Party-List was, what it was for, and how the number of assigned seats for Party List Representatives was determined and ultimately filled.
Unfortunately, this is the kind of work that is never done – primarily because new voters are constantly being added to the voter rolls, who – prior to that point – probably had little to zero interest in learning the mechanics of our representative democracy. And so, every three years, I’ve found it to be worth the effort to refresh this information and to put it out there for the curious.
What is the Party List System of Representation
The party list system is a form of “proportional representation in the election of representatives to the House of Representatives” mandated in the 1987 Constitution, which – according to its enabling law, Republic Act 7941 – “will enable Filipino citizens belonging to marginalized and under-represented sectors, organizations and parties, and who lack well-defined political constituencies but who could contribute to the formulation and enactment of appropriate legislation that will benefit the nation as a whole, to become members of the House of Representatives.” To put it more simply, it is a way to get into the House of Representatives without needing to represent a specific legislative district.
In the same law, it is specified that “the party-list system is a mechanism of proportional representation in the election of representatives to the House of Representatives from national, regional and sectoral parties or organizations or coalitions thereof registered with the Commission on Elections.”
In the landmark decision of Atong Paglaum v. COMELEC, the Supreme Court reiterated this enumeration of who could participate in the PL System. Thus, the Court declared, “the party-list system is composed of three different groups: (1) national parties or organizations; (2) regional parties or organizations; and (3) sectoral parties or organizations.”
The Court clarified further that “national and regional parties or organizations are different from sectoral parties or organizations. National and regional parties or organizations need not be organized along sectoral lines and need not represent any particular sector.” This ruling overturned a number of previous SC decisions that had effectively made the PL system ‘exclusive’ for the marginalized and under-represented sectors. However despite this sharp jurisprudential U-turn, the general public still believes that only marginalized and under-represented sectors ought to be able to participate in the PL system, leading to a lot of disgruntlement and misdirected hate towards the COMELEC.
What is the Party List System good for?
Without the PL System, the only way you can get into the HOR would be to represent your legislative district. And with our politicians’ propensity to jealously guard access to positions of political leadership, that would inevitably lead to the virtual domination of political leadership by established political families or the super-rich. Without the PL System then, the vast majority of Filipinos would be essentially denied the opportunity to compete for elective positions in government, and could we even call ourselves a democracy in that case?
How many PL Representatives are there?
The number of PL representatives is mandated by the Constitution to be 20% of the total number of Representatives in the HOR, including the PL representatives themselves. Just as n academic exercise, I tried to write that as a mathematical equation and came up with X=0.2×(X+254), where X is the number of PL seats available. Crunching that equation gave me X= 63.5.
And the math checks out! According to the latest COMELEC issuance on the matter, COMELEC Resolution No. 11050, 63 seats in the House of Representatives are, in fact, allocated for Party List reps. Keep that number in mind – 63 – as it will be one of the bases for determining how many seats each PL candidate gets to occupy in the HOR.
The Banat Formula
In elections, each voter gets to note down a single vote for PL representative, choosing one candidate from all the partylist organizations participating. In the 2025 National and Local Elections, there looks to be close to 160 organizations competing for your one vote.
To qualify for a seat, a party-list group must earn at least 2% of the total votes cast in the party-list election. Thus all partylist groups that break through that 2% threshold are guaranteed at least one seat in the coming Congress. After this, additional seats are distributed proportionally among qualifying parties based on their vote shares, up to a maximum of three seats per winner.
In Banat v. COMELEC, the Supreme Court laid out the formula for doing just that.
To allocate additional seats, first determine the percentage of votes garnered by each Party-List candidate. This is accomplished by dividing the number of votes garnered by each party by the total number of votes cast for all party-list candidates.
Secondly, the percentage of votes is then multiplied by the remaining number of available seats, which is the difference between the maximum number of seats reserved – 63, if you remember – and the number of seats already allocated to the two-percenters.
The whole integer of the product of the percentage and of the remaining available seats corresponds to a party’s share in the remaining available seats. If there are still seats left over – and there usually are – those seats are assigned to each of the parties next in rank until all available seats are completely distributed. In this way, we get PL representatives who did not actually meet the 2% threshold.
Understanding the Party List system
The Party-List system is a crucial component of the Philippine electoral landscape, designed to promote diversity and representation within the House of Representatives. While it aims to empower marginalized and underrepresented sectors, misconceptions about its structure and purpose persist, often leading to frustration among the electorate. The complexity of its mechanics—illustrated by the allocation of seats through the Banat Formula—underscores the need for ongoing education and awareness.
The traditional thinking says that the task of education should rightly fall on the shoulders of those participating in the Party List system. But as new voters continually come up and engage with the electoral process, it becomes increasingly evident that education is far too important to be left in the hands of the partisans. If the democratic ideals embodied by the Party List system are to be nurtured and preserved, COMELEC must really step up.
