2007 Philippine House of Representatives elections


The 2007 Philippine House of Representatives elections were held on May 14, 2007, to elect members to the House of Representatives of the Philippines to serve in the 14th Congress of the Philippines from June 30, 2007, until June 30, 2010. The Philippines uses parallel voting for seats in the House of Representatives.
In district elections, 219 single-member constituencies elect one member of the House of Representatives. The candidate with the highest number of votes wins that district's seat. In the party-list election, the parties with at least 2% of the national vote were elected, and 21 representatives were elected However, later in 2007 the Supreme Court ruled in Banat vs. COMELEC that the 2% quota was unconstitutional, and that the sectoral representatives should comprise exactly 20% of the House. This led to the increase in the number of sectoral representatives to 51.
The administration-led TEAM Unity maintained control of the House of Representatives although the opposition-backed Genuine Opposition won control of the Senate. Incumbent Speaker Jose de Venecia of Pangasinan was elected Speaker after being the only one nominated: 186 voted for De Venecia, 1 against and 24 abstentions.

Campaign

Genuine Opposition

The Genuine Opposition targeted to win at least 80 seats to be able to impeach President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo; however the administration's TEAM Unity prevented GO in winning several of those seats by fielding in strong candidates against GO in those districts.

Lakas vs. KAMPI

The administration's two main parties, Lakas-CMD and Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino, was seen to win majority of the seats, with most contests contested by the two parties. This inevitably produced a split in the administration ranks on who would be their candidate for Speaker in the impending victory. However, the two parties were united in supporting President Arroyo and were able to prevent any impeachment proceeding against her or her allies from reaching the Senate.
Lakas-CMD party leader and House Speaker Jose de Venecia was challenged by KAMPI's Pablo P. Garcia for the speakership in the incoming 14th Congress of the Philippines which has caused a battle between administration allies. Recently, Garcia was accused by Parañaque City 1st District Rep. Eduardo Ziacita and Manila 6th District Rep. Bienvenido Abante, Jr. both under the party Lakas-CMD of using Government Service Insurance System or GSIS pension funds care of Garcia's son GSIS Vice-Chairman, General Manager and President Winston Garcia to bribe congressmen of PHP 300,000 to 400,000 to support his father's speakership bid.

Retiring and term limited incumbents

Lakas-CMD

District elections results

District representatives are allocated 80% of the seats in the House:

Party-list election result

Party-list representatives are allocated 20% of the seats in the House; however, due to the 2% threshold and the 3-seat cap rule, the 20% requirement was not met. On the BANAT vs. COMELEC decision of the Supreme Court, it declared the 2% threshold unconstitutional; instead it mandated that parties surpassing the 2% threshold automatically having seats, then allocating one seat for every party with less than 2% of the vote until the 20% allocation was met. With the formula used, this meant that the party with the highest number of votes usually gets three seats, the other parties with 2% or more of the vote winning two seats, and parties with less than 2% of the vote getting one seat.

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