2001 Philippine House of Representatives elections
Elections for the House of Representatives of the Philippines were held on May 14, 2001. This was the next election succeeding the events of the 2001 EDSA Revolution that deposed Joseph Estrada from the presidency; his vice president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo became president, and her party, Lakas, and by extension the People Power Coalition, dominated the midterm elections winning majority of the seats in the Senate and in the House of Representatives.
The elected representatives served in the 12th Congress from 2001 to 2004.
Electoral system
The House of Representatives shall have not more than 250 members, unless otherwise fixed by law, of which 20% shall be elected via the party-list system, while the rest are elected via congressional districts.In this election, there are 209 seats voted via first-past-the-post in single-member districts. Each province, and a city with a population of 250,000, is guaranteed a seat, with more populous provinces and cities divided into two or more districts.
Congress has the power of redistricting three years after each census.
As there are 209 congressional districts, there shall be 52 seats available under the party-list system. In 2000, the Supreme Court ruled the 2%–4%–6% method of allocating seats as unconstitutional. It then devised a new way of allocating the seats. It held the 2% electoral threshold for winning a guaranteed seat as constitutional. Next, the court ruled that the first-placed party should always have more seats than the other parties, and that the 2%–4%–6% method will only be used for the first-placed party. As for parties that got 2% of the vote but did not have the most votes, they will automatically have one more seat, then any extra seats will be determined via dividing their votes to the number of votes of the party with the most votes, then the quotient will be multiplied by the number of seats the party with the most votes has. The product, disregarding decimals, will be the number of seats a party will get.
Redistricting
Reapportioning the number of seats is either via national reapportionment three years after the release of every census, or via piecemeal redistricting for every province or city. National reapportionment has not happened since the 1987 constitution took effect, and aside from piecemeal redistricting, the apportionment was based on the ordinance from the constitution, which was in turn based from the 1980 census.Three new districts were created, at Valenzuela, and with the creation of Compostela Valley from Davao del Norte. The creation of Zamboanga Sibugay province from Zamboanga del Sur did not increase the number of districts.
Changes from the previous Congress
- Creation of Compostela Valley province
- *The 1st and 2nd districts of Davao del Norte becomes the new province of Compostela Valley, as its 1st and 2nd districts
- *The remaining Davao del Norte's 3rd district was redistricted, becoming the new 1st and 2nd districts.
- *Enacted into law as Republic Act No. 8470.
- *Approved in a plebiscite on March 7, 1998.
- Division of Valenzuela's at-large congressional district to two districts
- *Valenzuela's northwestern barangays becomes the 1st district.
- *The southeastern barangays becomes the 2nd district.
- *Enacted into law as Republic Act No. 8526.
- *Approved in a plebiscite on December 30, 1998.
Changes from the outgoing Congress
- Creation of Zamboanga Sibugay province
- *The municipalities included in Zamboanga del Sur's 3rd district becomes the at-large district of the newly created province of Zamboanga Sibugay.
- *Zamboanga del Sur's 1st and 2nd districts were left intact.
- *Enacted into law as Republic Act No. 8973.
- *Approved in a plebiscite held on February 22, 2001.