What is legal is not always moral
The truism “what is legal is not always moral” is evidently demonstrated in how partylist groups are seated in our House of Representatives.
According to one source for the partylist vote during the last May 12, 2025 elections, partylist got 2,779,621 votes, which is equivalent to 6.63% of the votes. One bored evening I went for my calculator and divided 2,779,621 votes by 0.0663 and the quotient I got was almost 42 million votes. The result surprised me because, according to the same source, the total registered voters for the elections is 69,673,653, with a voter turnout rate of 82.2% or a total of 57,350,968 ballots cast.
The discrepancy between the total ballots cast (i.e., 57,350,968) and the total number of votes from which Akbayan’s calculated 6.63% votes received (i.e., about 42 million votes) surprised me a great deal. I subsequently dug around to find out answers for my questions. According to a news report, 41,658,790 valid votes were recorded for the partylist groups.
Apparently, there were more than 15 million under- and overvotes for the partylist elections, which explains the difference between the total votes cast and the total valid votes counted for the partylist. Very briefly, an undervote, according to ballotpedia dot org, “occurs when no vote is cast for a single-choice election.” In short, voters did not cast a ballot for the partylist, which is why they were not included in the total valid votes.
What happened is called an undervote because the partylist election is a single-choice vote (i.e., voters are only given one valid choice for the partylist), and if a voter leaves that choice blank, it is technically called an undervote.
Overvoting happens when a voter chooses more than the required number of choices. In the partylist election, as mentioned, voters are only given one valid choice. If a voter chooses more than one partylist to vote for —either by accident, ignorance or choice— that becomes an overvote by definition. As the vote counting machines are programmed to accept a single choice only, an overvote is automatically invalidated and excluded in the computation of the total valid votes.
I am unaware if the Commission on Elections has any data about how many actual under- and overvotes there were, separately tallied. We know the total number of under- and overvotes combined by subtracting the valid votes from the total votes cast, which is 15,692,178 votes.
I discovered that due to litigation concerning the partylist seating in the House of Representatives over the past 30 years, the Supreme Court ruled that, in mathematical terms, the divisor to be used to calculate the “percentage of the votes” for the partylist elections shall be based on the total VALID votes.
The decision to use total valid votes —instead of the total votes— as the basis for computing the percentage of the vote in the partylist election does not make sense to me.
The valid votes are lower than the total vote because of the under- and overvotes, which were invalidated. Using the valid votes has the effect of inflating the percentage of the vote. Students well versed with basic mathematical operations know that a LOWER divisor (i.e., valid votes) results in a HIGHER quotient (i.e., percentage of the votes). Conversely, a HIGHER divisor (i.e., total votes) leads to a LOWER quotient. Using the total valid votes only makes the percentage of the votes higher for the partylist contenders. Using the total vote, including under- and overvotes, make the percentage of the votes lower for the partylist contenders. Most crucial of all, a higher or lower percentage of the votes may have a tremendous effect on how many seats a partylist will have in the House of Representatives.
Two things become the crucial consequence of the Supreme Court decision in this matter:
It essentially disenfranchises the under- and overvoters because their votes —an undervote is a vote, same with an overvote— were not counted in determining the percentage of the vote. Though invalidated for logical reasons, under- and overvotes are still part of the total votes. Consequently, excluding the under- and overvotes deprived certain voters from determining the percentage of the vote and maybe even the specific seating in the House of Representatives in the end, which to me is a form of disenfranchisement.
Disenfranchisement, according to Oxford languages, means “the state of being deprived of a right or privilege…” In this scenario, under- and overvoters were deprived of the right to affect the computation of the percentage of the vote and theoretically, the seating of partylist representatives, which is a textbook definition of disenfranchisement.
Using the total valid votes instead of the total votes inflates the percentage of certain partylist contenders making them in some cases eligible for more seats in the House of Representatives than what they truly deserve in principle. It has the potential to rob certain partylist groups of a seat that they deserve if the total votes had been used in the calculation instead of total valid votes.
The law uses percentage of the vote to determine how many seats certain partylist are awarded in the House of Representatives. The decision to use a certain calculation formula has massive implications to the partylist system.
I understand that the Supreme Court made this decision, making it a de facto law of the country. I am not a lawyer but as a layman I am fully aware that not everything that is legal is necessarily moral.
I am resolute in my beliefs that using the total valid votes instead of the total votes in determining the percentage of the votes by the partylist groups is immoral and actually disenfranchises the under- and overvoters, making it immoral, iniquitous and dare I say as a non-lawyer, unconstitutional.
It is my fervent hope that partylist groups come before the Supreme Court to contest the wisdom of the existing formula. I also pray that our magistrates see the light in this matter.
May 23, 2025