BANAT v.

COMELEC
586 SCRA 210 – Political Law – Constitutional Law – Legislative Department – Party List System;
Proportional Representation; Proper Computation
Statutory Construction – Rule in Interpreting the Constitution – Intent of the Framers vs Intent of the People
NOTE: This case is consolidated with BAYAN Muna vs COMELEC (G.R. No. 179295).
In July and August 2007, the COMELEC, sitting as the National Board of Canvassers, made a partial
proclamation of the winners in the party-list elections which was held in May 2007.
In proclaiming the winners and apportioning their seats, the COMELEC considered the following rules:
1. In the lower house, 80% shall comprise the seats for legislative districts, while the remaining 20% shall come
from party-list representatives (Sec. 5, Article VI, 1987 Constitution);
2. Pursuant to Sec. 11b of R.A. 7941 or the Party-List System Act, a party-list which garners at least 2% of the
total votes cast in the party-list elections shall be entitled to one seat;
3. If a party-list garners at least 4%, then it is entitled to 2 seats; if it garners at least 6%, then it is entitled to 3
seats – this is pursuant to the 2-4-6 rule or the Panganiban Formulafrom the case of Veterans Federation Party
vs COMELEC.
4. In no way shall a party be given more than three seats even if if garners more than 6% of the votes cast for the
party-list election (3 seat cap rule, same case).
The Barangay Association for National Advancement and Transparency (BANAT), a party-list candidate,
questioned the proclamation as well as the formula being used. BANAT averred that the 2% threshold is invalid;
Sec. 11 of RA 7941 is void because its provision that a party-list, to qualify for a congressional seat, must garner
at least 2% of the votes cast in the party-list election, is not supported by the Constitution. Further, the 2% rule
creates a mathematical impossibility to meet the 20% party-list seat prescribed by the Constitution.
BANAT also questions if the 20% rule is a mere ceiling or is it mandatory. If it is mandatory, then with the 2%
qualifying vote, there would be instances when it would be impossible to fill the prescribed 20% share of party-
lists in the lower house. BANAT also proposes a new computation (which shall be discussed in the “HELD”
portion of this digest).
On the other hand, BAYAN MUNA, another party-list candidate, questions the validity of the 3 seat rule (Section
11a of RA 7941). It also raised the issue of whether or not major political parties are allowed to participate in the
party-list elections or is the said elections limited to sectoral parties.
ISSUES:
I. How is the 80-20 rule observed in apportioning the seats in the lower house?
II. Whether or not the 20% allocation for party-list representatives mandatory or a mere ceiling.
III. Whether or not the 2% threshold to qualify for a seat valid.
IV. How are party-list seats allocated?
V. Whether or not major political parties are allowed to participate in the party-list elections.
VI. Whether or not the 3 seat cap rule (3 Seat Limit Rule) is valid.
HELD:
I. The 80-20 rule is observed in the following manner: for every 5 seats allotted for legislative districts, there shall
be one seat allotted for a party-list representative. Originally, the 1987 Constitution provides that there shall
be not more than 250 members of the lower house. Using the 80-20 rule, 200 of that will be from legislative
districts, and 50 would be from party-list representatives. However, the Constitution also allowed Congress to fix
the number of the membership of the lower house as in fact, it can create additional legislative districts as it may
deem appropriate. As can be seen 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.
How did the Supreme Court arrive at 55? This is the formula:
(Current Number of Legislative DistrictRepresentatives ÷ 0.80) x (0.20) = Number of Seats Available to Party-List
Representatives
Hence,
(220 ÷ 0.80) x (0.20) = 55
II. The 20% allocation for party-list representatives is merely a ceiling – meaning, 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.
III. No. Section 11b of RA 7941 is unconstitutional. There is no constitutional basis to allow that only party-lists
which garnered 2% of the votes cast are qualified 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 Supreme Court explained:
To illustrate: There are 55 available party-list seats. Suppose there are 50 million votes cast for the 100
participants in the party list elections. A party that has two percent of the votes cast, or one million votes, gets a
guaranteed seat. Let us further assume that the first 50 parties all get one million votes. Only 50 parties get a
seat despite the availability of 55 seats. Because of the operation of the two percent threshold, this situation will
repeat itself even if we increase the available party-list seats to 60 seats and even if we increase the votes cast to
100 million. Thus, even if the maximum number of parties get two percent of the votes for every party, it is always
impossible for the number of occupied party-list seats to exceed 50 seats as long as the two percent threshold is
present.
It is therefore clear that the two percent threshold presents an unwarranted 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.”
IV. 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.
But how? The Supreme Court laid down the following rules:
1. The parties, organizations, and coalitions shall be ranked from the highest to the lowest based on the number
of votes they garnered during the elections.
2. The parties, organizations, and coalitions 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. Those garnering 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. Each party, organization, or coalition shall be entitled to not more than three (3) seats.
In computing the additional seats, the guaranteed seats shall no longer be included because they have already
been allocated, at one seat each, to every two-percenter. Thus, the remaining available seats for allocation as
“additional seats” are the maximum seats reserved under the Party List System less the guaranteed seats.
Fractional seats are disregarded in the absence of a provision in R.A. No. 7941 allowing for a rounding off of
fractional seats.
In short, there shall be two rounds in determining the allocation of the 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. (Please refer to the full text of the case for the tabulation).
The number of remaining seats, in this case 38, shall be used in the second round, 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. Now if it so happens that
BUHAY got 20% of the votes cast, it will still get 3 seats because the 3 seat limit rule prohibits it from having
more than 3 seats.
Now after all the tw0-percenters were 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.
V. No. By a vote of 8-7, the Supreme Court continued to disallow major political parties (the likes of UNIDO,
LABAN, etc) from participating in the party-list elections.
Although the ponencia (Justice Carpio) did point out that there is no prohibition either from the Constitution or
from RA 7941 against major political parties from participating in the party-list elections as the word “party” was
not qualified and that even the framers of the Constitution in their deliberations deliberately allowed major political
parties to participate in the party-list elections provided that they establish a sectoral wing which represents the
marginalized (indirect participation), Justice Puno, in his separate opinion, concurred by 7 other justices,
explained that the will of the people defeats the will of the framers of the Constitution precisely because it is the
people who ultimately ratified the Constitution – and the will of the people is that only the marginalized sections of
the country shall participate in the party-list elections. Hence, major political parties cannot participate in the
party-list elections, directly or indirectly.
VI. Yes, the 3 seat limit rule is valid. This is one way to ensure that no one party shall dominate the party-list
system.

ATONG PAGLAUM v. COMELEC

694 SCRA 477 – Political Law – Constitutional Law – Legislative Department – Party-List System
52 party-list groups and organizations filed separate petitions totaling 54 with the Supreme Court (SC) in an effort
to reverse various resolutions by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) disqualifying them from the May 2013
party-list race. The Comelec, in its assailed resolutions issued in October, November and December of 2012,
ruled, among others, that these party-list groups and organizations failed to represent a marginalized and
underrepresented sector, their nominees do not come from a marginalized and underrepresented sector, and/or
some of the organizations or groups are not truly representative of the sector they intend to represent in
Congress.

Petitioners argued that the COMELEC committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of
jurisdiction in disqualifying petitioners from participating in the 13 May 2013 party-list elections, either by denial of
their new petitions for registration under the party-list system, or by cancellation of their existing registration and
accreditation as party-list organizations; andsecond, whether the criteria for participating in the party-list system
laid down inAng Bagong Bayani and Barangay Association for National Advancement and Transparency v.
Commission on Elections(BANAT) should be applied by the COMELEC in the coming 13 May 2013 party-list
elections.
ISSUE: Whether or not the COMELEC committed grave abuse of discretion in disqualifying the said party-lists.

HELD: No. The COMELEC merely followed the guidelines set in the cases of Ang Bagong Bayaniand BANAT.
However, the Supreme Court remanded the cases back to the COMELEC as the Supreme Court now provides
for new guidelines which abandoned some principles established in the two aforestated cases. The new
guidelines are as follows:

I. Parameters. In qualifying party-lists, the COMELEC must use the following parameters:
1. Three different groups may participate in the party-list system: (1) national parties or organizations,
(2) regional parties or organizations, and (3) sectoral parties or organizations.
2. National parties or organizations and regional parties or organizations do not need to organize along
sectoral lines and do not need to represent any “marginalized and underrepresented” sector.
3. Political parties can participate in party-list elections provided they register under the party-list system
and do not field candidates in legislative district elections. A political party, whether major or not, that
fields candidates in legislative district elections can participate in party-list elections only through its
sectoral wing that can separately register under the party-list system. The sectoral wing is by itself an
independent sectoral party, and is linked to a political party through a coalition.
4. Sectoral parties or organizations may either be “marginalized and underrepresented” or lacking in “well-
defined political constituencies.” It is enough that their principal advocacy pertains to the special interest
and concerns of their sector. The sectors that are “marginalized and underrepresented” include labor,
peasant, fisherfolk, urban poor, indigenous cultural communities, handicapped, veterans, and overseas
workers. The sectors that lack “well-defined political constituencies” include professionals, the elderly,
women, and the youth.
5. A majority of the members of sectoral parties or organizations that represent the “marginalized and
underrepresented” must belong to the “marginalized and underrepresented” sector they represent.
 Similarly, a majority of the members of sectoral parties or organizations that lack “well-defined political
constituencies” must belong to the sector they represent. The nominees of sectoral parties or
organizations that represent the “marginalized and underrepresented,” or that represent those who lack
“well-defined political constituencies,” either must belong to their respective sectors, or must have a
track record of advocacy for their respective sectors. The nominees of national and regional parties or
organizations must be bona-fide members of such parties or organizations.
6. National, regional, and sectoral parties or organizations shall not be disqualified if some of their
nominees are disqualified, provided that they have at least one nominee who remains qualified.
II. In the BANAT case, major political parties are disallowed, as has always been the practice, from participating
in the party-list elections. But, since there’s really no constitutional prohibition nor a statutory prohibition, major
political parties can now participate in the party-list system provided that they do so through their bona fide
sectoral wing (see parameter 3 above).

Allowing major political parties to participate, albeit indirectly, in the party-list elections will
encourage them to work assiduously in extending their constituencies to the “marginalized and
underrepresented” and to those who “lack well-defined political constituencies.”

Ultimately, the Supreme Court gave weight to the deliberations of the Constitutional Commission when
they were drafting the party-list system provision of the Constitution. The Commissioners deliberated that it was
their intention to include all parties into the party-list elections in order to develop a political system which is
pluralistic and multiparty. (In the BANAT case, Justice Puno emphasized that the will of the people should defeat
the intent of the framers; and that the intent of the people, in ratifying the 1987 Constitution, is that the party-list
system should be reserved for the marginalized sectors.)

III. The Supreme Court also emphasized that the party-list system is NOT RESERVED for the “marginalized and
underrepresented” or for parties who lack “well-defined political constituencies”. It is also for national or regional
parties. It is also for small ideology-based and cause-oriented parties who lack “well-defined political
constituencies”. The common denominator however is that all of them cannot, they do not have the machinery –
unlike major political parties, to field or sponsor candidates in the legislative districts but they can acquire the
needed votes in a national election system like the party-list system of elections.
If the party-list system is only reserved for marginalized representation, then the system itself unduly
excludes other cause-oriented groups from running for a seat in the lower house.

As explained by the Supreme Court, party-list representation should not be understood to include
only labor, peasant, fisherfolk, urban poor, indigenous cultural communities, handicapped, veterans, overseas
workers, and other sectors that by their nature are economically at the margins of society. It should be noted
that Section 5 of Republic Act 7941 includes, among others, in its provision for sectoral representation groups of
professionals, which are not per se economically marginalized but are still qualified as “marginalized,
underrepresented, and do not have well-defined political constituencies” as they areideologically marginalized.