2010 Philippine House of Representatives elections


The 2010 Philippine House of Representatives elections were held on May 10, 2010 to elect members to the House of Representatives of the Philippines to serve in the 15th Congress of the Philippines from June 30, 2010 to June 30, 2013. The Philippines uses parallel voting for seats in the House of Representatives; a voter has two votes: one for a representative from one's legislative district, and another for a sectoral representative via closed lists under the party-list system, with a 2% election threshold and 3-seat cap, when the parties with 2% of the national vote or more not meeting the 20% of the total seats, parties with less than 2% of the vote will get one seat each until the 20% requirement is met.
In district elections, 229 single-member districts 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, parties will dispute 57 seats. In all, the 15th Congress will have 286 members, with 144 votes being the majority. No party entered candidates in all districts, but only Lakas Kampi CMD entered enough candidates to win an outright majority.
By May 21, GMA News and Public Affairs, based on their partial and unofficial tally, had Lakas Kampi CMD with the party with the most seats with 109, followed by the Liberal Party with 43, the Nationalist People's Coalition had 33, and the Nacionalista Party had 25. The other parties garnered 13 seats. This includes candidates who switched parties after the campaign period has begun, while excluding party-list representatives.
In the party-list election, Ako Bicol Political Party topped the election getting 5% of the national vote and won three seats, but their proclamation was delayed as a disqualification case against them was brought up; their first three nominees were subsequently seated with the dismissal of the case. As much as 43 other parties qualified to win seats, and all but two were yet to be seated due to pending disqualification cases.
Despite being the party leader and winning a congressional seat in Pampanga, Lakas Kampi CMD leader and sitting president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had reportedly declined to run as Speaker and is fielding Edcel Lagman of Albay on the basis of term–sharing with Danilo Suarez of Quezon if they win the speakership. Meanwhile, the Liberals will be fielding in former Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. of Quezon City, who was also a former Lakas Kampi member. Incumbent Speaker Prospero Nograles is barred from seeking office in the House after serving three consecutive terms; he was defeated in the Davao City mayoralty election, although his son successfully kept his father's seat.
Notable celebrities who won include Imelda Marcos, Lani Mercado, Lucy Torres and Manny Pacquiao.
With the Liberals, Nacionalistas, the NPC, a faction of Lakas-Kampi, other minor parties and most of the party-list groups voting for him, Belmonte was easily elected as Speaker, with 227 votes, as compared to 29 votes of Lagman.

District changes

There are several new districts; most notable is the redistricting of Cavite from three legislative districts to seven. Only the old first district remained intact, except for Bacoor being separated and being named as the new second district; all other districts were redistricted anew.
The election in the Dinagat Islands is in limbo as the Supreme Court earlier ruled that the Dinagat Islands' creation as a province from Surigao del Norte was unconstitutional for not having met the provisions of the constitution on population and land area. However, the court's decision has yet to be final pending motions for reconsideration, and the commission allowed the elections to take place. If the Supreme Court finalizes its decision on the dissolution of the Dinagat Islands, the provincial-level and congressional elections held in both areas, and in the areas they were originally carved from will be voided and new elections will take place. If the decision is upheld, there will be 58 sectoral representatives.
Malolos, which was supposed to have its own congressional district from Bulacan's 1st district, but it was nullified with finality by the Supreme Court for having insufficient population. However, the ballots for both Malolos and the 1st district excluding Malolos were printed after the decision was finalized. As such, the elections for representative in Malolos and the 1st district were deferred, and voting done on May 10 was invalidated, and an election will be scheduled solely for the representative's position.

Retiring and term-limited incumbents

As of now, there are 68 Representatives that are either term-limited or retiring from Congress.

Campaign

Campaigns in House of Representatives elections are usually conducted on a district-by-district basis; there is no nationwide campaign. The races are between local politicians in the districts, and their allegiances and parties may switch from their announcement on the intention to run, registering as a candidate, printing out of ballots, election day and from the convening of the 15th Congress. The sitting president's party usually controls the House of Representatives no matter the election result.
The Lakas-Kampi titular head, President Arroyo, became the first president to run for a seat in the House of Representatives after her term as president; the party had the most number of candidates, and was the only party that can win an outright majority as the other parties did not ran in a majority of the seats. Lakas-Kampi aimed to secure enough votes to impeach as leverage if their presidential candidate Gilberto Teodoro does not win.
The Liberal Party chose former Lakas-Kampi stalwart and Quezon City mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr. as their candidate for the speakership. Belmonte, a former speaker while being a member of Lakas-CMD, defected to the Liberals before the election. The Nacionalista Party would also field a candidate for the speakership. The Nationalist People's Coalition usually supports the policies of the sitting president, while the sectoral representatives, except for those leaning to the left, also support whomever is in power. The other parties that fielded candidates on the presidential election would support their own presidential candidate, but it is unknown if they would've supported the party of the winning president; these parties fielded candidates in a minority of seats.

Notable races

Ilocos Region

Several party-list organizations were delisted, added to the list, disqualified and re-listed in the run-up to the election, most notably LGBT party Ang Ladlad which secured a Supreme Court injunction preventing COMELEC from disqualifying them. Mikey Arroyo's nomination by Ang Galing Pinoy, a party representing tricycle drivers and security guards, and other personalities of the Arroyo administration that were nominated by supposedly underrepresented sectors had also been questioned.

Defeated incumbents

Open seat gains

  1. Antipolo's 2nd legislative district
  2. Bacolod's legislative district
  3. Basilan's legislative district
  4. Batangas's 1st legislative district
  5. Batangas's 3rd legislative district
  6. Benguet's legislative district
  7. Bohol's 1st legislative district
  8. Bohol's 2nd legislative district
  9. Bukidnon's 2nd legislative district
  10. Bulacan's 3rd legislative district
  11. Bulacan's 4th legislative district
  12. Cagayan's 3rd legislative district
  13. Cagayan de Oro's 1st legislative district
  14. Cebu City's 2nd legislative district
  15. Ilocos Norte's 1st legislative district
  16. Ilocos Norte's 2nd legislative district
  17. Lanao del Norte's 1st legislative district
  18. Leyte's 4th legislative district
  19. Marinduque's legislative district
  20. Misamis Oriental's legislative district
  21. North Cotabato's 2nd legislative district
  22. Pangasinan's 4th legislative district
  23. Parañaque's 1st legislative district
  24. Pateros/Taguig's legislative district
  25. Quezon City's 1st legislative district
  26. San Juan's legislative district
  27. Sarangani's legislative district
  28. Sorsogon's 2nd legislative district
  29. South Cotabato's 2nd legislative district
  30. Tarlac's 1st legislative district

    Results

Graphical representation of the results: Top bar represents seats won, while the bottom denotes the proportion of votes received.
In district elections, the candidate with the highest number of votes in the district wins that district's seat.
Even prior to the election when Lakas Kampi CMD members switched parties to either the Liberals or the Nacionalistas, they still suffered the biggest seat losses, although they still retained the plurality of seats in the House. The Liberals and Nacionalistas all gained seats but will not surpass the number of Lakas Kampi's seats. Lakas Kampi also tallied the most votes, but had a disproportionate number of seats won.
A total of seven independents won in the House.

Details

Shading refers to the party that won a plurality of seats:

Party-list election

In party-list elections, parties nominate three persons to be their candidates, ranked in order of which they will be seated if elected.
Candidates from the district elections are not allowed to be nominated by the parties participating in the party-list election, nor are parties who have candidates in the district elections may be allowed to join the party-list election; the parties in the party-list election must represent a distinct "sector" in the society such as women, laborers and the like.
In the election, the voter elects the party, not the nominees of the party. If the party surpasses 2% of the national vote, the person first nominated by the party will be seated. Additional seats can be won depending on the number of votes the party garnered in the election, although a party can only win up to three seats. If there are still empty seats, parties with less than 2% of the vote will be ranked in descending order, then will have one seat each until all of the seats have been filled up.
On May 31, the leading parties in the party-list election were declared by the commission as winners; deferred are the parties that have pending disqualification cases against them. According to Ang Galing Pinoy's proclamation, the party of incumbent Pampanga 2nd district representative Mikey Arroyo was recalled as Arroyo has a pending disqualification notice against him, and he is their No. 1 nominee.
Several congressmen-elect have already defected to the Liberal Party as response to Noynoy Aquino's victory in the presidential election. This comes as Negros Occidental representative Iggy Arroyo said that Lakas Kampi CMD has the number to elect his sister-in-law and representative-elect President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as speaker as she is pushed by to run for the speakership. Congressman-elect and former speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. has emerged to be the Liberal Party's leading candidate for speaker. The anti-Arroyo representatives have formed the Conscience and Reform coalition to strengthen their ranks.
However, Arroyo had repeatedly declined Lakas Kampi's prodding to run for speaker. Three Lakas Kampi congressmen instead made themselves available to run for speaker: Edcel Lagman, Danilo Suarez and Elpidio Barzaga Jr. in a party caucus. It was agreed upon that while Arroyo "will still call the shots," Lagman will run for the speakership, and if elected, will serve for the first 18 months, then Suarez will serve the remainder.
On June 25, the Liberal Party swore in congressmen as new members, mostly defecting from Lakas-Kampi. Most Lakas-Kampi congressmen jumpred ship after Arroyo declined being their party's candidate for speaker. With the House "tradition" in which congressmen align themselves with the party of the president, Belmonte now has at least 150 congressmen pledging support for him, including 75 from the Liberal Party, members of the Nationalist People's Coalition, Nacionalistas, PDP-Laban, party-list groups, and "some 55" members of the Lakas-Kampi independent bloc.
The House of Representatives convened on July 26, with Joseph Emilio Abaya nominating Belmonte for Speaker; Rodolfo Albano, Danilo Suarez and Augusto Syjuco nominated Lagman. Belmonte was elected Speaker with 227 votes, while Lagman got 29 votes.