About the election
Short description of the context and results of the election.
President Rodrigo Duterte’s Partido Demokratiko Pilipino–Lakas ng Bayan (PDP–Laban) and its allies (see note 1) won the majority of seats in the 304-member House of Representatives (see note 2) in the mid-term elections. President’s Duterte’s eldest son, Paolo, was elected to the House of Representatives and subsequently formed the "Duterte Coalition" in the House. In the half-renewal of the 24-member Senate, the President’s allies took 9 of the 12 seats at stake, holding a total of 20 seats. Newly elected senators include Mr. Christopher Lawrence "Bong" Go (PDP–Laban), the President’s personal aide; Mr. Ronald dela Rosa (PDP–Laban), the former national police chief who enforced the President's war on illegal drugs (which officially caused over 5,000 deaths); and Ms. Imee Marcos, daughter of former President Ferdinand Marcos, who ran on the Nacionalista Party (NP) ticket. Five women were elected in 2019, up from two elected in 2016, making a record seven women in all.
The major electoral issues included reinstating the death penalty (most recently abolished in 2006), lowering the age for criminal liability below the current 15 years old, and constitutional amendments to introduce a federal form of government.
Note 1:
The PDP–Laban, which took only three House seats in 2016, won 84 in 2019. Its allies since 2016 – including the Nacionalista Party (NP), the Nationalist People's Coalition (NPC) and the National Unity Party (NUP) – took over 100 seats. Many members of the Liberal Party (LP, the largest party in the 2016 elections), including the country’s Vice-President Maria Leonor "Leni" Gerona vda. de Robredo, had joined the PDP–Laban before the 2019 elections.
Note 2:
The statutory number of members of the House of Representatives has increased from 297 to 304: 243 members elected under the first-past-the-post system and 61 members elected under the proportional representation system.