The Party-List System

It's barely 2 weeks until the National elections. I already have a president and vice president and I am also already decided on 6 out of 12 senators but what about the Party List? What about it? Not a lot of people, myself included, have complete knowledge about this Party-list system. The last time I was able to vote was in 1998 and I don't even remember if I had to vote for these sectoral parties at that time. So here's what it's about....

Let's start with the Congress
The Congress of the Philippines is the national legislature of the Philippines. It is a bicameral body consisting of:
1. the Senate (upper chamber)
              -composed of 24 senators (half of which are elected every 3 years)
2. the House of Representatives (lower chamber)
             -composed of a maximum of 250 congressmen
                         2 types of Congressmen:
                                 a. the district representative (1 or 2 from each province and city)
                                 b. sectoral representatives (represents the minority sectors of the population)

          The sectoral representatives are also known as 'the party-list representatives'. They represent labor unions, rights groups, and other organizations. This enables the minority groups to be represented in the Congress. Since 1998, each voter votes for a single party-list organization. Organizations that garner at least 2% of the total number of votes are awarded one representative for every 2% up to a maximum of three representatives in the House of Representatives.

         On the 10th of May, each voter will have to choose 1 out of 187 Party-list Groups. To be honest, even with the information I now have regarding the party-list, I still don't have ideas anyway about most of the group candidates. A few comes to mind though because they are very active and you'd often hear about them on news. There's GABRIELA(for women's rights)- represented by Liza Maza; BAYAN MUNA - represented by Satur C. Ocampo; and KABATAAN -represented by Raymond Palatino

Sources: wikipedia.org , senate.gov.ph, comelec.gov.ph
Know more about the House of Representatives by clicking here.

 This is a sample/template of the official Ballot. This is available to the public and was downloaded from comelec.gov.ph 

Click the image to enlarge.