MATHEMATICS 2 - PRACTICAL MATHEMATICS

GROUP F

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2013

SPOT YOUR PARTY-LIST REPRESENTATIVE. Members of the House of Representatives approved the P2.6-trillion General Appropriations Act of 2013 in record ten session days. HOR Media Relations Service-PRIB

Comelec elects party-list reps

NOT BY MAGIC BUT BY MATH Party-list representatives waited for 11 years to be represented despite the 1987 Constitution creating them. It was only after three years after Republic Act 7941 or the Party-List System Act of 1995 was enacted that party-lists were elected. According to the first paragraph, Section 11 of Party-List System Act, the House of Representatives shall be composed of 80 percent of district representatives and 20 percent of party-list representa-

Party-lists win seats using Carpio Formula

tives. It should be noted that these percentages have a significant role in the more specific determination of the number of partylist representative seats that can be won. In addition, Section 3(a) of the said law states: The party-list system is a mechanism of proportional representation in the election of representatives to the House of Representatives from national, regional and sectoral parties or organizations or coalitions thereof registered with the Commission on Elections (Comelec). The computation techniques for these two types of representatives differ. Allocation of district representative seats uses single member district plurality, which allows only one seat to be won in each district; thus, only the candidate with the most number of votes is awarded a seat. On the other hand, allocation of party-list representative seats is computed Jump to page 2

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JUSTICE CARPIO

Antonio Carpio, the incumbent Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines, penned the Carpio Formula that systematizes the Philippine partylist elections effective April 2009 in the Banat et al. v. Comelec case.

From Party-lists win p. 1 using proportional representationthe number of seats that can be won by one party-list can be more than one, as long as it is proportional to the number of votes obtained by the party-list. Moreover, partylists shall assume three qualifications before they can run in the elctions: a) it assumes a party-list i.e. it should be belonging from any of the sectors stated in the Constitution, except from the religious sector; b) it assumes the legislative district allows for more than one seat; and c) it assumes there will be a formula for translating votes to seats. The third qualification is important in

Carpio Formula inefficient, easily exploited by party-lists: Math prof

Thought to be a democraticizing tool in the party-list elections, the Carpio Formula has gained the ire of some of the political scientists and election lawyers. Felix Muga, Ateneo de Manila mathematics professor and senior fellow of the Center for People Empowerment and Governance, cited the inefficiencies of the Carpio Formula. By deriving the Carpio Formula, Muga explained how the retainment of ceiling and abolishment of threshold can be exploited by party-list candidates who wants to gain the maximum of three seats. First, Muga said that the Carpio Formula is not a proportional representation. In a proportional representation system, voters indicate their preference for a particular party and the parties then receive seats in proportion to their share of the vote. Consequently, all voters deserve representation and that all political groups in society deserve to be represented in our legislatures in proportion to their strength in the electorate. However, the three-representative cap (ceiling) disre-

determining the number of seats that a partylist can win in a partylist election. Since the results of the 2007 elections, the Carpio Formula is being used by the Comelec to translate votes in the party-list system into seats. Penned by Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio in Banat et al. v. Comelec, the Carpio Formula abolishes the threshold and retains the ceiling. According to the decision, threshold is the minimum number of votes needed to get one seat in the party-list elections, while ceiling is the maximum number of seats allowed in the party-list elections. Carpio said that the ceiling is retained bec-

WHO REPRESENTS YOU? Representing the youth sector, former Kabataan Party-list Raymond Palatino delivered his privelege speech against Cybercrime Law.

uase it prevents any party from dominating the party-list elections. However, political scientists argue that all proportional representation systems have a threshold in order to avoid party-system fragmentation in the legislature making the passing of laws more difficult. For political

scientists who advocate two-party system or less party systems in the legislature, the general rule for proportional representation system is: The higher the threshold, the stronger the incentives for smaller parties to coalesce with each other to form larger parties or coalitions.

gards the popularity of certain organizations, where it does not allocate proportional seats to the number of votes. As such, it defeats the key attraction of proportional representation which is the less wastage of votes. Second, it promotes party fragmentation where there are too many representatives in the legislaJump to page 3

From Carpio formula p.2 ture, making passing of laws more difficult. Furthermore, the formula makes it impossible to fill all the 58 party-list seats. Assuming that votes will be divided equally among more than 100 party-lists that the Comelec accredits. Lastly, only a number of votes must be gained in order to get the ceiling of three seats. Muga wrote in an article, A twopercenter may be able to get three seats if its percentage share of the total party-list votes is greater than or equal

to the total district representive seats divided by the difference of the available number of party-list seats and the number of two-percenters, multiplied by 100. For example, if there are ten, eleven and twelve two-percenters in the party-list elections, a candidate should only get at most 4.1667 percent, 4.2553 percent and 4.3478 percent respectively. Therefore, it generates a rule: The lesser the number of twopercenters, the higher tnumber of seats available, the higher the chances of acquiring additional seats.

Elections Trivia
Before the Carpio Formula, two rules awere used by the Comelec coterminously: the Comelec 2-4-6 Formula and the Panganiban Formula. The ceiling was not yet implemented after Carpio Formula have been used (i.e. 2010, 2013 elections). For the 2013 elections, only BUHAY party-list was able to fill-up the threerepresentative seat ceiling by getting 4.64 percent of the total party-list votes. There are only 15 two-percenters in the 2013 elections out of the 113 registered and qualified party-lists. Not all the 58 seats were allocated in the 2013 elections. Two seats and one seat are reserved for Senior Citizens and Abang Lingkod party-lists respectively after the Supreme Court overturned the decision of Comelec en banc to disqualify both party-lists. Disqualified partylists got a total of 1,233,808 votes.

HOW DOES CARPIO FORMULA WORK?