2025 Philippine House of Representatives elections

2025 Philippine House of Representatives elections

← 2022 May 12, 2025 (2025-05-12) 2028 →

All 317 seats to the House of Representatives of the Philippines, including 63 party-list seats 159 seats needed for a majority

Congressional district elections

Party Current seats Lakas 92 NUP 36 Nacionalista 32 NPC 33 PFP 10 Liberal 10[a] Others 40 Party-lists 61[b]

Party-list elections

Party Current seats ACT-CIS 3 1-Rider Partylist 2 Tingog Party List 2 4Ps Party-list 2 Ako Bicol 2 SAGIP Partylist 2 Others 48 Incumbent Speaker Martin Romualdez Lakas

The 2025 Philippine House of Representatives elections will be the 37th lower house elections in the Philippines, scheduled to be held on May 12, 2025, within the 2025 Philippine general election. All 317 seats in the House of Representatives will be contested in the election, including one seat for each of the 253 congressional districts in the country and 63 seats representing party-lists apportioned on a nationwide vote.

Background

In the 2022 election, parties aligned with the UniTeam Alliance and eventual president Bongbong Marcos secured a supermajority of seats in the House of Representatives of the Philippines.^[1] Political observers noted that among those elected to the chamber, most came from "wealthy and influential families", which was associated with the vote-buying incidents observed in the election.^[2]

Upon the opening of the 19th Congress of the Philippines, Representative Martin Romualdez of Leyte's 1st district, a cousin of President Marcos, was elected as the speaker of the House of Representatives unopposed.^[3][4] Media outlets have noted that a number of positions in the house leadership were assigned to representatives related to the Marcos family, including senior deputy majority leader Sandro Marcos, the son of President Marcos, and chair of the accounts committee Yedda Marie Romualdez, the wife of Speaker Romualdez.^[5][6]

Electoral system

The Philippines uses parallel voting for its lower house elections. For this election, there are 317 seats in the House of Representatives; 254 of these are district representatives, and 63 are party-list representatives.^[7]

Philippine law mandates that there should be one party-list representative for every four district representatives. District representatives are elected under the first-past-the-post system from single-member districts. Party-list representatives are elected via the nationwide vote with a 2% election threshold, with a party winning not more than three seats.^[8] The party with the most votes usually wins three seats, then the other parties with more than 2% of the vote two seats. At this point, if all of the party-list seats are not filled up, the parties with less than 2% of the vote will win one seat each until all party-list seats are filled up.^[9] The electoral system, with the 2% threshold and the three-seat cap, encourage vote splitting; and encourage sectors to up separate party-lists for every sector so as not to waste their vote on just one party.^[10]

Political parties competing in the party-list election are barred from participating district elections, and vice versa, unless permitted by the Commission on Elections. Party-lists and political parties participating in the district elections may forge coalition deals with one another.

Redistricting

In the Philippines, Congress has the power to create new congressional districts. Congress can either redistrict the entire country within three years after each Philippine census, or create new districts from existing ones piecemeal, although Congress has never redistricted the entire country wholesale since the approval of the 1987 constitution. Congress usually creates a new district once a place reaches the minimum 250,000 population mandated by the constitution.^[11]

New districts can also be created by creating new provinces and cities; in this case, it also must be approved by the people in a plebiscite in the affected places.

Changes from the 19th Congress

• Creating Maguindanao del Norte's at-large congressional district^[12]
  • The area mostly previously represented by Maguindanao's 1st congressional district were absorbed in the congressional district for the newly-created province.^[13]
  • Took effect following the 2022 Maguindanao division plebiscite.
• Creating Maguindanao del Sur's at-large congressional district^[12]
  • The area mostly previously represented by Maguindanao's 2nd congressional district were absorbed in the congressional district for the newly-created province.^[14]
  • Took effect following the 2022 Maguindanao division plebiscite.
• Makati's 2nd congressional district^[15]
  • The three barangays remaining in Makati's jurisdiction after the Supreme Court awarded Taguig the 10 EMBO barangays after winnning the Fort Bonifacio boundary dispute shall be retained as Makati's 2nd district.
  • The EMBO barangays now under the jurisdiction of Taguig will not be allocated to any congressional district by the COMELEC.

On June 21, 2024, the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) confirmed that there will be 254 congressional districts to be contested in the election and 63 seats apportioned among the party-lists.^[16]

Participating parties

In both chambers of Congress, members are organized into "blocs", akin to parliamentary groups elsewhere. In keeping with the traditions of the Third Philippine Republic which was under a two-party system, there are two main blocs, the majority and minority blocs; this is although the country is now in a multi-party system. Those who voted for the winning speaker are from the majority bloc, while those who did not (if there are more than two candidates for the speakership) will vote amongst themselves on who will be the minority bloc. Those who belong to neither bloc shall be the independent minority bloc. Members can also be from the independent bloc. Each bloc can have members from multiple parties. Only the majority and minority blocs have voting privileges in committees.

In the 19th Congress, the majority bloc is aligned with the administration of President Marcos.^[1]

In congressional districts

Parties in the House of Representatives at the end of the 19th Congress of the Philippines

Party		2022 results		Seats before the election		Bloc membership		Political affiliation
		Votes	Seat(s) won	Seats	Change	Majority	Minority	2022		2025
	Lakas	9.39%	26 / 316	92 / 316	66	All	None		UniTeam		Bagong PIlipinas
	NUP	12.63%	33 / 316	36 / 316	3	Most	Some		UniTeam		Bagong PIlipinas
	Nacionalista	13.72%	36 / 316	32 / 316	4	Most	Some		UniTeam	TBA
	NPC	11.70%	35 / 316	33 / 316	2	All	None		UniTeam		Bagong PIlipinas
	PFP	0.95%	2 / 316	10 / 316	8	All	None		UniTeam		Bagong PIlipinas
	Liberal	3.78%	10 / 316	10 / 316		Most	Some		TRoPa	TBA
Others		32.08%	76 / 316	40 / 316	36	Most	Some	—
Local parties		11.31%	29 / 316	8 / 316	21	Most	Some	—
Independents		4.44%	6 / 316	1 / 316	2	All	None	—
Vacant		—		5 / 316	5	—
Total		100%	253 / 316	253 / 316

In party-lists

Retiring and term-limited incumbents

Term-limited

48 representatives have been elected three consecutive times in regular elections and are barred from seeking another term in 2025.

Notes

References