BANAT v.
COMELEC There shall be two rounds in determining the allocation of the
GR No. 179271
April 21, 2009
APPORTIONING SEATS IN THE LOWER HOUSE
The 80-20 rule:
For every 5 seats allotted for legislative districts, there shall be one
seat allotted for a party-list representative.
In the May 2007 elections, there were 220 district representatives,
hence applying the 80-20 rule or the 5:1 ratio, there should be 55
seats allotted for party-list representatives.
(Current Number of Legislative District Representatives ÷ 0.80) x
(0.20) = Number of Seats Available to Party-List Representatives
Hence,
(220 ÷ 0.80) x (0.20) = 55
20% ALLOCATION FOR PARTY-LIST
REPRESENTANTIVES
The is merely a ceiling –the number of party-list representatives
shall not exceed 20% of the total number of the members of the
lower house. However, it is not mandatory that the 20% shall be
filled.
CONSTITUTIONALITY OF SECRTION 11(b) of RA 7941
There is no constitutional basis to allow that only party-lists which
garnered 2% of the votes cast are requalified for a seat and those
which garnered less than 2% are disqualified. Further, the 2%
threshold creates a mathematical impossibility to attain the ideal
80-20 apportionment.
The 2% threshold presents an obstacle to the full implementation
of Section 5(2), Article VI of the Constitution and prevents the
attainment of “the broadest possible representation of party,
sectoral or group interests in the House of Representatives.”
Instead, the 2% rule should mean that if a party-list garners 2% of
the votes cast, then it is guaranteed a seat, and not “qualified.” This
allows those party-lists garnering less than 2% to also get a seat.
Rules:
1) RANKING: The parties, organizations, and coalitions (POC)
shall be ranked from the highest to the lowest based on the number
of votes they garnered during the elections.
2) 2% GUARANTY The POC receiving at least two percent (2%)
of the total votes cast for the party-list system shall be entitled to
one guaranteed seat each.
3) ADDITIONAL SEATS Those garnering a sufficient number of
votes, according to the ranking in paragraph 1, shall be entitled to
additional seats in proportion to their total number of votes until all
the additional seats are allocated.
4) LIMITATION Each party, organization, or coalition shall be
entitled to not more than three (3) seats.
seats.
In the first round, all party-lists which garnered at least 2% of the
votes cast (called the two-percenters) are given their one seat each.
The total number of seats given to these two-percenters are then
deducted from the total available seats for party-lists. In this case,
17 party-lists were able to garner 2% each. There are a total 55
seats available for party-lists hence, 55 minus 17 = 38 remaining
seats.
In the second round, the number of remaining seats, in this case
38, shall be used particularly, in determining:
First - the additional seats for the two-percenters, and;
Second - in determining seats for the party-lists that did not garner
at least 2% of the votes cast, and in the process filling up the 20%
allocation for party-list representatives.
How is this done?
Get the total percentage of votes garnered by the party and
multiply it against the remaining number of seats. The product,
which shall not be rounded off, will be the additional number of
seats allotted for the party list – but the 3 seat limit rule shall still
be observed.
Example:
In this case, the BUHAY party-list garnered the highest total vote
of 1,169,234 which is 7.33% of the total votes cast for the party-list
elections (15,950,900).
Applying the formula above: (Percentage of vote garnered) x
(remaining seats) = number of additional seat
Hence, 7.33% x 38 = 2.79
Rounding off to the next higher number is not allowed so 2.79
remains 2. BUHAY is a two-percenter which means it has a
guaranteed one seat PLUS additional 2 seats or a total of 3 seats.
After all the two-percenters are given their guaranteed and
additional seats and there are still unoccupied seats, those seats
shall be distributed to the remaining party-lists and those higher in
rank in the voting shall be prioritized until all the seats are
occupied.