Considering pronouncements made by some PL groups about their <a href=”http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=588397&publicationSubCategoryId=63″ target=”_blank”>proclamations</a>, it would be interesting to know the jurisprudence that forms the basis for how winners are determined in the PL system.
And so, presenting … (drumroll) … <a href=”http://sc.judiciary.gov.ph/jurisprudence/2009/april2009/179271.htm” target=”_blank”>Banat v. COMELEC!</a>
A bit of background. The PL Law says that 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 seat each. In addition, the law says “those garnering more than two percent (2%) of the votes shall be entitled to additional seats in proportion to their total number of votes.”
In Banat, the Court said that:
<blockquote>In computing the allocation of <strong>additional seats</strong>, the continued operation of the two percent threshold for the distribution of the additional seats as found in the second clause of Section 11(b) of R.A. No. 7941 is <strong>unconstitutional</strong>. This Court finds that the two percent threshold makes it mathematically impossible to achieve the maximum number of available party list seats when the number of available party list seats exceeds 50. The continued operation of the two percent threshold in the distribution of the additional seats frustrates the attainment of the permissive ceiling that 20% of the members of the House of Representatives shall consist of party-list representatives.
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.
We therefore strike down the two percent threshold only in relation to the distribution of the additional seats as found in the second clause of Section 11(b) of R.A. No. 7941. 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.”</blockquote>
Whew. So, after having basically upended everything we thought we knew about the PL, the SC goes ahead and lays down the rules:
<blockquote>In determining the allocation of seats for party-list representatives under Section 11 of R.A. No. 7941, the following procedure shall be observed:
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.</blockquote>
Didja get that? No? Don’t worry. Not a lot of people did, I imagine. But the Court did clarify with this:
<blockquote>In declaring the two percent threshold unconstitutional, we do not limit our allocation of additional seats in Table 3 below to the two-percenters. The percentage of votes garnered by each party-list candidate is arrived at by dividing the number of votes garnered by each party by 15,950,900, the total number of votes cast for party-list candidates. There are two steps in the second round of seat allocation. First, the percentage is multiplied by the remaining available seats, 38, which is the difference between the 55 maximum seats reserved under the Party-List System and the 17 guaranteed seats of 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. Second, we assign one party-list seat to each of the parties next in rank until all available seats are completely distributed. We distributed all of the remaining 38 seats in the second round of seat allocation. Finally, we apply the three-seat cap to determine the number of seats each qualified party-list candidate is entitled.</blockquote>
It’s really not that hard to understand. Just remember a coupla basics. First, there are two rounds of allocation of seats. The first round deals with those who get at least 2% of the total number of votes cast for the PL system. Those lucky bastards get one sure seat in the House.
And second, the second round of allocations deals with additional seats. In this round, the 2% threshold of the first round no longer applies. Here, the basis for allocation of seats is more pro-rated, i.e., you get as many seats as may be proportional to the number of votes you got.
Some of the “2%ers” can get as much as two additional seats. There’s a cap to the number of seats a PL group can win and hold – THREE. So, the front runners will probably max out at three seats each, while everybody else gets less – with most getting just one seat. The main objective of this second round is to ensure that the seats guaranteed to PL Representation, by the Constitution, are completely filled up.