The 2007 Philippine House of Representatives elections were held on May 14, 2007, to elect members to the House of Representatives of the Philippines to serve in the 14th Congress of the Philippines from June 30, 2007, until June 30, 2010. The Philippines uses parallel voting for seats in the House of Representatives. The administration-led TEAM Unity maintained control of the House of Representatives although the opposition-backed Genuine Opposition won control of the Senate. Incumbent Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. of Pangasinan was elected Speaker after being the only one nominated: 186 voted for De Venecia, 1 against (Eduardo Joson) and 24 abstentions.

Electoral system

The House of Representatives shall have not more than 250 members, unless otherwise fixed by law, of which 20% shall be elected via the party-list system, while the rest are elected via congressional districts. In this election, there are 218 seats voted via first-past-the-post in single-member districts. Each province, and a city with a population of 250,000, is guaranteed a seat, with more populous provinces and cities divided into two or more districts. Congress has the power of redistricting three years after each census. As there are 218 congressional districts, there shall be 53 seats available under the party-list system. A party has to cross the 2% electoral threshold to win a guaranteed seat. Next, the court ruled that the first-placed party should always have more seats than the other parties, and that the prior 2%–4%–6% method will only be used for the first-placed party. As for parties that got 2% of the vote but did not have the most votes, they will automatically have one more seat, then any extra seats will be determined via dividing their votes to the number of votes of the party with the most votes, then the quotient will be multiplied by the number of seats the party with the most votes has. The product, disregarding decimals (it is not rounded), will be the number of seats a party will get. The Supreme Court ruled the 2% electoral threshold as unconstitutional in 2009, which then allocated a new way to allocate seats.

Campaign

Genuine Opposition

The Genuine Opposition (GO) targeted to win at least 80 seats to be able to impeach President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo; however the administration's TEAM Unity prevented GO in winning several of those seats by fielding in strong candidates against GO in those districts.

Lakas vs. KAMPI

The administration's two main parties, Lakas-CMD and Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino (KAMPI), was seen to win majority of the seats, with most contests contested by the two parties. This inevitably produced a split in the administration ranks on who would be their candidate for Speaker in the impending victory. However, the two parties were united in supporting President Arroyo and were able to prevent any impeachment proceeding against her or her allies from reaching the Senate. Lakas-CMD party leader and House Speaker Jose de Venecia was challenged by KAMPI's Pablo P. Garcia for the speakership in the incoming 14th Congress of the Philippines which has caused a battle between administration allies. Recently, Garcia was accused by Parañaque 1st District Rep. Eduardo Zialcita and Manila 6th District Rep. Bienvenido Abante, Jr. both under the party Lakas-CMD of using Government Service Insurance System or GSIS pension funds care of Garcia's son GSIS Vice-Chairman, General Manager and President Winston Garcia to bribe congressmen of PHP 300,000 to 400,000 to support his father's speakership bid.

Retiring and term limited incumbents

Lakas-CMD

Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino

Kilusang Bagong Lipunan

Laban ng Demokratikong Filipino

Liberal Party

Nacionalista Party

Nationalist People's Coalition

Results

District elections results

District representatives are allocated 80% of the seats in the House:

Party-list election result

Party-list representatives are allocated 20% of the seats in the House; however, due to the 2% threshold and the 3-seat cap rule, the 20% requirement was not met. On the 2009 BANAT vs. COMELEC decision of the Supreme Court, it declared the 2% threshold unconstitutional; instead it mandated that parties surpassing the 2% threshold automatically having seats, then allocating one seat for every party with less than 2% of the vote until the 20% allocation was met. With the formula used, this meant that the party with the highest number of votes usually gets three seats, the other parties with 2% or more of the vote winning two seats, and parties with less than 2% of the vote getting one seat.

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