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Philippines Legislative Department
The Philippines is unusual among developing countries in
having a strong, bicameral legislature. The constitution
establishes a 24-seat Senate and a House of Representatives with
200 elected representatives and up to 50 more appointed by the
president. Senators are chosen at large, and the twenty-four
highest vote-winners nationwide are elected. Senators must be
native-born Filipinos at least thirty-five years old. The term of
office is six years, and senators cannot serve more than two
consecutive terms.
House of Representatives members are elected in single-member
districts (200 in 1991), reapportioned within three years of each
census. Representatives must be native-born Filipinos and at
least twenty-five years of age. Their term of office is three
years, except that those elected in May 1987 did not have to face
the electorate until 1992. They may not serve for more than three
consecutive terms. In addition, President Aquino was to be
empowered to appoint to the House of Representatives up to
twenty-five people from "party lists." This stipulation was
intended to provide a kind of proportional representation for
small parties unable to win any single-member district seats.
However, Congress did not pass the necessary enabling
legislation. The president also is allowed to appoint up to
twenty-five members from so-called sectoral groups, such as
women, labor, farmers, the urban poor, mountain tribes, and other
groups not normally well-represented in Congress, "except the
religious sector." Making these appointments would have provided
an opportunity for Aquino to reward her supporters and influence
Congress, but she has left most such positions unfilled. All
members of both houses of Congress are required to make a full
disclosure of their financial and business interests.
The constitution authorizes Congress to conduct inquiries, to
declare war (by a two-thirds vote of both houses in joint
session), and to override a presidential veto with a two-thirds
vote of both houses. All appropriations bills must originate in
the House, but the president is given a line-item veto over them.
The Senate ratifies treaties by a two-thirds vote.
The first free congressional elections in nearly two decades
were held on May 11, 1987. The pre-martial law Philippine
Congress, famous for logrolling and satisfying individual
demands, was shut down by Marcos in 1972. The 1973 constitution
created a rubber-stamp parliament, or National Assembly, which
only began functioning in 1978 and which was timid in confronting
Marcos until some opposition members were elected in May 1984. In
the 1987 elections, more than 26 million Filipinos, or 83 percent
of eligible voters, cast their ballots at 104,000 polling
stations. Twenty-three of twenty-four Aquino-endorsed Senate
candidates won. The lone senator opposed to Aquino was former
Minister of Defense Juan Ponce Enrile, her husband's former
jailer and her one-time defender. Enrile was seated as the
twenty-fourth and final member of the Senate, after the Supreme
Court ordered the Commission on Elections to abandon plans for a
recount. The new legislature was formally convened on July 27,
1987. The leader of the Senate is the Senate president, who
stands next in the line of succession for the presidency after
the country's vice president. Generally, the Senate had a
reputation as a prestigious body with a truly national outlook,
in contrast to the House of Representatives, which had more
parochial concerns.
At least three-quarters of those elected to the House were
endorsed by Aquino, but her influence was less than these results
might seem to indicate. She never formed her own political party
but merely endorsed men and women with various ideologies who,
because of their illustrious family names and long political
experience, were probably going to win anyway. Out of 200 elected
House members, 169 either belonged to or were related to old-line
political families. Philippine politics still was the art of
assembling a winning coalition of clans.
Congress did not hesitate to challenge the president. For
example, in September 1987, less than two months after the new
Congress convened, it summoned the presidential executive
secretary to testify about the conduct of his office. The
following year, Congress also rejected Aquino's proposed
administrative code, which would have conferred greater power on
the secretary of national defense.
The internal operation of Congress has been slowed by
inefficiency and a lack of party discipline. Legislation often
has been detained in the forty-three House and thirty-six Senate
committees staffed with friends and relatives of members of
Congress. Indicative of the public frustration with Congress, in
1991 the National Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) and the
Makati Business Club formed a group called Congresswatch to
monitor the activities of sitting congress members and promote
accountability and honesty.
Data as of June 1991
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