section_path: Manner of election/Contestations/Veterans Federation Party et al. vs. COMELEC
section_name: Veterans Federation Party et al. vs. COMELEC
paragraph_text: Veterans Federation Party et al. vs. COMELEC
  
  In 2000, the Veterans Federation Party (VFP), the Akbayan! Citizens' Action Party and several other parties sued the COMELEC, which led a case in the Supreme Court; the court ruling changed the way how the seats are allocated for the winning parties. In 1998, only 14 representatives were elected out of 13 winning parties, well short of the then 52 representatives needed to fill up 20% of the House. The so-called "Panganiban formula", named after Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban, calculates that the number of seats a party will win is dependent on the number of votes of the party with the highest number of votes.
  
  The court maintained the four inviolable parameters:
  
  First, the twenty percent allocation – the combined number of all party-list congress representatives shall not exceed twenty percent of the total membership of the House of Representatives, including those elected under the party list.
  
  Second, the two percent threshold – only those parties garnering a minimum of two percent of the total valid votes cast for the party-list system are "qualified" to have a seat in the House of Representatives;
  
  Third, the three-seat limit – each qualified party, regardless of the number of votes it actually obtained, is entitled to a maximum of three seats; that is, one "qualifying" and two additional seats.
  
  Fourth, proportional representation – the additional seats which a qualified party is entitled to shall be computed "in proportion to their total number of votes".
  
  The court came up with the following procedure on how to determine how many seats a party wins. First, the party with the highest number of votes gets at least one seat. It can win additional seats for every 2% of the national vote until it reaches the three-seat limit.
  
  Therefore:
  
  T P s = 1 if g >= 0.02 {\displaystyle TP_{s}=1~{\mbox{if}}~g\ >=0.02} T P s = 2 if g >= 0.04 {\displaystyle TP_{s}=2~{\mbox{if}}~g\ >=0.04}
  
  where:
  
  For the other parties surpassing the 2% threshold, they all automatically win one seat; additional seats will be won according to the following formula.
  
  where:
  
  The product, disregarding integers, is the number of additional seats for the party.
  
  Prior to the adopting the "Panganiban formula," the court considered applying the Niemayer formula used in the allocation of seats in the German Bundestag. However, since R.A. 7941 limits the maximum number of seats for each party to three, of the existence of a 2% quota, and that 20% of the seats can be filled up, the court instead devised the formula above to ensure that the 20% allocation for sectoral representatives would not be exceeded, the 2% threshold will be upheld, the three-seat limit enforced and the proportional representation be respected. The formula was first used in determining the result of the 2001, and was first applied in the 2004 elections.
  
  The use of this formula by the COMELEC had been labeled by certain groups as to "annihilate independent voices in the House," according to Akbayan representative Etta Rosales. The court upheld this in subsequent cases, such as the Partido ng Manggagawa vs. COMELEC and Citizens' Battle Against Corruption vs. COMELEC.
  
  Panganiban in 2010 remarked in a lecture at the Ateneo Law School that "It's very complicated and there must be an easier formula to compute," adding that the party-list law has to be amended by Congress.
  
  In 2000, the Veterans Federation Party (VFP), the Akbayan! Citizens' Action Party and several other parties sued the COMELEC, which led a case in the Supreme Court; the court ruling changed the way how the seats are allocated for the winning parties. In 1998, only 14 representatives were elected out of 13 winning parties, well short of the then 52 representatives needed to fill up 20% of the House. The so-called "Panganiban formula", named after Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban, calculates that the number of seats a party will win is dependent on the number of votes of the party with the highest number of votes.
  
  The court maintained the four inviolable parameters:
  
  First, the twenty percent allocation – the combined number of all party-list congress representatives shall not exceed twenty percent of the total membership of the House of Representatives, including those elected under the party list.
  
  Second, the two percent threshold – only those parties garnering a minimum of two percent of the total valid votes cast for the party-list system are "qualified" to have a seat in the House of Representatives;
  
  Third, the three-seat limit – each qualified party, regardless of the number of votes it actually obtained, is entitled to a maximum of three seats; that is, one "qualifying" and two additional seats.
  
  Fourth, proportional representation – the additional seats which a qualified party is entitled to shall be computed "in proportion to their total number of votes".
  
  The court came up with the following procedure on how to determine how many seats a party wins. First, the party with the highest number of votes gets at least one seat. It can win additional seats for every 2% of the national vote until it reaches the three-seat limit.
  
  Therefore:
  
  T P s = 1 if g >= 0.02 {\displaystyle TP_{s}=1~{\mbox{if}}~g\ >=0.02} T P s = 2 if g >= 0.04 {\displaystyle TP_{s}=2~{\mbox{if}}~g\ >=0.04}
  
  where:
  
  For the other parties surpassing the 2% threshold, they all automatically win one seat; additional seats will be won according to the following formula.
  
  where:
  
  The product, disregarding integers, is the number of additional seats for the party.
  
  Prior to the adopting the "Panganiban formula," the court considered applying the Niemayer formula used in the allocation of seats in the German Bundestag. However, since R.A. 7941 limits the maximum number of seats for each party to three, of the existence of a 2% quota, and that 20% of the seats can be filled up, the court instead devised the formula above to ensure that the 20% allocation for sectoral representatives would not be exceeded, the 2% threshold will be upheld, the three-seat limit enforced and the proportional representation be respected. The formula was first used in determining the result of the 2001, and was first applied in the 2004 elections.
  
  The use of this formula by the COMELEC had been labeled by certain groups as to "annihilate independent voices in the House," according to Akbayan representative Etta Rosales. The court upheld this in subsequent cases, such as the Partido ng Manggagawa vs. COMELEC and Citizens' Battle Against Corruption vs. COMELEC.
  
  Panganiban in 2010 remarked in a lecture at the Ateneo Law School that "It's very complicated and there must be an easier formula to compute," adding that the party-list law has to be amended by Congress.