2013 Philippine general election

2013 Philippine general election

← 2010 May 13, 2013 (2013-05-13) 2016 →
Registered	52,982,173
Turnout	40,144,207
2013 Philippine Senate election
← 2010 May 13, 2013 (2013-05-13) 2016 →
12 (of the 24) seats to the Senate of the Philippines 13 seats needed for a majority
Majority party Minority party   Leader Franklin Drilon Juan Ponce Enrile Party Liberal PMP Alliance Team PNoy UNA Seats won 9 3 Popular vote 175,716,460 90,808,675 Percentage 59.63% 30.82%
Senate President before election Juan Ponce Enrile UNA Elected Senate President Franklin Drilon Liberal
2013 Philippine House of Representatives elections
← 2010 May 13, 2013 (2013-05-13) 2016 →
All 293 seats in the House of Representatives of the Philippines 147 seats needed for a majority
Party % Seats +/– Liberal 37.56 109 +62 NPC 17.08 42 +13 UNA 11.17 8 +8 NUP 8.55 24 +24 Nacionalista 8.41 18 −7 Lakas 5.24 14 −92 Bukidnon Paglaum 0.36 1 +1 Kambilan 0.34 1 +1 KABAKA 0.34 1 0 Unang Sigaw 0.34 1 +1 KBL 0.34 1 0 UNEGA 0.33 1 +1 LDP 0.32 2 0 Kusug Agusanon 0.25 1 +1 CDP 0.24 1 +1 PPPL 0.20 1 +1 Akbayan 0.12 1 +1 Magdiwang 0.08 1 0 Independent 5.92 6 −1 This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below. Speaker before Speaker after Feliciano Belmonte, Jr. Liberal Feliciano Belmonte, Jr. Liberal

Politics of the Philippines
Government Constitution of the Philippines Charter Change Laws Legal codes Taxation
Executive President of the Philippines Bongbong Marcos (PFP) Vice President of the Philippines Sara Duterte (HNP) Cabinet (lists) Executive departments Local government
Legislature Congress of the Philippines 19th Congress Senate President Migz Zubiri (Independent) House of Representatives Speaker Martin Romualdez (Lakas) Districts Party-list representation Bangsamoro Parliament Provincial boards City councils Municipal councils Barangay councils
Judiciary Supreme Court of the Philippines Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo Court of Appeals Court of Tax Appeals Sandiganbayan Ombudsman Regional Trial Courts Barangay justice
Constitutional commissions Civil Service Commission Chairperson Karlo Nograles Commission on Audit Chairperson Gamaliel Cordoba Commission on Elections Chairperson George Garcia
Elections General 2016 2019 2022 Barangay 2013 2018 2023 Referendums
Political parties Akbayan Aksyon Lakas LDP Liberal Nacionalista NPC NUP PFP Reporma PDP–Laban UNA
Administrative divisions Capital Regions Autonomous regions Provinces Cities Municipalities Barangays Poblacions Sitios Puroks
Related topics Foreign relations Human rights
Philippines portal Other countries
v t e

A general election was held in the Philippines on May 13, 2013. It was a midterm election—the officials elected will be sworn in on June 30, 2013, midway through President Benigno Aquino III's term of office.

Being elected are 12

Barangay officials, including barangay captains, were elected on October 28, 2013. The elections for SK officials were held at the same day, but on September 24, 2013, the Congress of the Philippines voted to postpone of the election for at least a year.^[2]

Preparations

Registration of voters and candidates

The Commission on Elections (COMELEC) ended the year-long registration of new voters and voters transferring residences nationwide, apart from the general registration of voters in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) on October 31, 2012. Due to the commission not allowing an extension of registration, COMELEC offices nationwide were swamped with people on the last day of registration, although the process was mostly peaceful.^[3]

The COMELEC held a week-long separate registration for prospective candidates starting from October 1. The commission is expected to release a final list of candidates by October 6. Candidates running for the Senate should file certificates of candidacies at the commission's main office at Intramuros, while those running for the other positions should file at their local COMELEC offices.^[4]

The commission completed the cleansing of the voters list in the ARMM, rejecting 236,489 names. Most were either double registrants or were too young to vote.^[5]

Absentee voting

Registered voters who are members of the military, police, civil service and media who cannot vote at their

Overseas

The commission removed 238,557 overseas absentee voters from the voters' list after failing to manifest their intention to vote. Out of about 915,000 overseas voters, more than 200,000 had not voted in two preceding elections and were sent notices; only 29 replied and were not removed from the voters' list.^[6] However, after being slammed by the overseas Filipinos on their disenfranchisement, the commission reinstated the 238,557 overseas absentee voters; they also extended the deadline for the period of filing of the manifestation of intent to vote until election day itself.^[7] Overseas absentee voting started on April 13, and continued until election day. Depending on the diplomatic mission, a voter may vote personally or via the mail, and via manually or via the automated system. Voting in Saudi Arabia began on April 16 after the Saudi customs refused to release the voting paraphernalia in time for April 13.^[8]

Local

Members of the police, military, members of the civil service and the media who had previously registered for local absentee voting voted for the Senate and party-list elections from April 28 to 30. Those which failed to vote at this period are still eligible to vote on election day itself.

On January 13, the election period began. This allowed the commission to impose prohibitions on 24 activities, including a nationwide ban on guns and other deadly weapons on that day.[11]

The commission released regulations on

On mid-April, the Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order on limiting the airtime of political advertisements by candidates by the Commission on Elections. Voting 9–6, the high court favored the petition by Team PNoy senatorial candidate Alan Peter Cayetano to halt the implementation of Resolution No. 9615 and its amendment, Resolution No. 9631.^[17] The airtime limit presently stands at an aggregate of 120 minutes in all TV networks and 180 minutes in all radio stations for all national candidates and an aggregate of 60 minutes in all TV networks and 90 minutes in all radio stations for all local candidates. Sixto Brillantes, dismayed and the high court rulings adverse to the election commission threatened to resign but later relented after a meeting with President Aquino.^[18]

Source code

A few days after Gordon's petition, or exactly a week before the election, Brillantes announced that Smartmatic and Dominion signed an agreement releasing the source code, and that it would be presented to the public on May 8. Critics scored that the late release of the source code is not possible with only a few days remaining before the elections.[23] On May 9, Dominion turned the source code, which was in a CD, to the commission. Dominion, the commission and SLI Global Solutions, which had certified the source code months earlier, encrypted the source code on a computer provided by the commission. The source code was then burned anew to a separate CD-R, placed inside a safety box, and was delivered to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to be kept in a vault.^[24]

Bans

Gun ban

The commission issued a nationwide

The commission also issued an "expanded" liquor ban: instead of banning intoxicating substances on election day and election eve, the commission included the four days preceding the election. Foreigners and certain hotels and similar establishments were exempted.^[27] However, the Supreme Court of the Philippines issued a restraining order reverting to the two-day liquor ban after it upheld a petition by the Food and Beverage Inc. and International Wines and Spirits Association.^[28] The commission then withdrew its resolution instituting the five-day liquor ban, reverting the ban to two days as originally intended by law.^[29]

Money ban

In order to curb vote buying, the commission issued a resolution prohibiting bank withdrawals of more than 100,000 pesos.^[30] However, Secretary of Justice Leila de Lima expressed reservations on the constitutionality of the so-called "money ban",^[31] and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has explicitly stated that it would not comply with the commission's resolution.^[32]

The commission subsequently released a supplemental resolution amending the "money ban", which gives the banks the discretion on whether to allow bank withdrawals or not.^[33] However, the Supreme Court issued a status quo ante order against the "money ban", acting upon a petition by the Bankers Association of the Philippines.^[34]

Candidates

Results

Polls opened at 7:00 and there were over 52 million eligible voters to vote for the more than 18,000 positions. In addition, police and military forces were put on higher alert for expectations of violence which had resulted in about 60 deaths since campaigning began.^[35]

Congress

The congressmen elected in 2013, together with

Twelve of the 24 seats in the

House of Representatives

All 292 seats in the House of Representatives are up. A voter had two votes in the House of Representatives elections: one for party-list representatives, which shall comprise at most 20% of the seats, and another for district representatives, which shall comprise the rest of the seats.

District elections

Elections are via

Party-list election

Elections are via a

Originally scheduled for 2011, Congress postponed the election to 2013 in order for reforms to be put in place and for the regional election to be synchronized with the 2013 election. All seats of regional elected officials are up.

Local elections

All

Controversies

Election watchdog AES Watch has called the 2013 elections "a technology and political disaster" due to several controversies, including premature proclamation of candidates and irregular decisions made during the canvassing.^[36]

PCOS transmission issues

On the day of elections, an estimated 18,000 voting machines, representing a quarter of the total 78,000 machines, experienced problems in transmitting the voting results.

Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company, the Philippines' largest telecommunications company, released a statement dismissing the Comelec's allegations of cellular network problems, saying that the combined networks of Smart Communications and Sun Cellular covered every city and municipality in the country, and no unusually heavy traffic was recorded on election day.^[38]

The Comelec failed to meet its self-imposed deadline of proclaiming winners in the senatorial election 48 hours after the end of the voting period.^[38]

Senatorial winners proclamation

The COMELEC proclaimed the first six senatorial winners of the election on May 16, though only 20 percent of election results had been canvassed.^[36] Three more winners were proclaimed the following day.^[36] The winners were proclaimed alphabetically rather than by the number of votes garnered, since the vote totals had not yet been finalized.^[36] Winning candidates Nancy Binay and Koko Pimentel declined to attend the proclamation, on the advice of their lawyers.^[36]

Lack of source code review

Following the election, a poll watchdog alleged that the Comelec failed to do a review of the source code for voting machines used in the election, in violation of the Automated Election Systems Law.^[39] Under the law, the technical committee must have documented certification that the all hardware and software components were operating properly at least three months before the elections.^[39]

Vote-rigging speculation

Speculations of election fraud turned up following the elections, as the vote canvassing revealed a "60-30-10" pattern of votes—wherein administration, opposition, and independent senatorial candidates consistently obtained 60 percent, 30 percent, and 10 percent of the votes respectively.^[39]

See also

• 2013 Philippine barangay elections
• Commission on Elections
• Elections in the Philippines
• Congress of the Philippines

References