Elections for the House of Representatives of the Philippines were held on May 8, 1995. Being the first midterm election since 1938, the party of the incumbent president, Fidel V. Ramos's Lakas-NUCD-UMDP, won a plurality of the seats in the House of Representatives.[1]
The elected representatives served in the 10th Congress from 1995 to 1998. Jose de Venecia, Jr. was easily reelected as the speaker of the House.
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 lieu of an enabling law in regards to the party-list system, sectoral representatives shall continued to be appointed by the president just like previously in the Batasang Pambansa for the first three congresses from the enactment of the constitution, which includes this congress.
In this election, there are 204 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.
Reapportioning (redistricting) 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.[2]
The Local Government Code of 1991, enacted as Republic Act. No. 7160, mandates that all existing sub-provinces be made into provinces, having their own congressional representation.
Biliran, which was a sub-province of Leyte and included in its 3rd district, was then made into a province and becomes its own at-large district.
Guimaras, which was a sub-province of Iloilo and included in its 2nd district, was then made into a province and becomes its own at-large district.
Benguet (Benguet's 2nd district) becomes its own at-large district.
Summary of changes
As there were 218 seats from congressional districts, and since the constitution requires that there should be 1 party-list seat for every 4 seats from congressional districts, this means there were 53 party-list seats up for this election, or for a total of 270 seats.
Category
Total
Congressional districts in the outgoing Congress
200
New districts from redistricting laws from previous congresses
2
New districts from redistricting laws from outgoing Congress
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.