1978 Philippine parliamentary election

A parliamentary election was held in the Philippines on April 7, 1978, for the election of the 165 regional representatives to the Interim Batasang Pambansa (the nation's first parliament). The leading opposition party, the Lakas ng Bayan (LABAN), ran twenty-one candidates for the Metro Manila area. Their leading candidate was the jailed opposition leader Ninoy Aquino. Marcos regime's party known as the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL), which was led by the then-First Lady Imelda Marcos. Ninoy was allowed to run by his fellow partymates under the Liberal Party, who boycotted the election and was not allowed to campaign, and so his family campaigned for him. The night before the election on April 6, 1978, a noise barrage was organized by the supporters of (LABAN) which occurred up to dawn.

1978 Philippine parliamentary election

April 7 and 27, 1978
179 (of the 189) seats in the Interim Batasang Pambansa 90 seats needed for a majority
First party Second party Third party   Leader Ferdinand Marcos Benigno Aquino Jr. Hilario Davide Jr. Party KBL LABAN Pusyon Bisaya Leader's seat none Region IV-A (lost) Region VII Last election new party new party new party Seats won 150 0 13 Seat change 150 13 Popular vote 147,885,493 21,541,600 9,495,416 Percentage 71.13 10.36 4.57
Prime Minister-designate Ferdinand Marcos KBL

These elections were followed by the sectoral election on April 27, which elected additional 14 representatives. Another 10 representatives were appointed, bringing up the total number of representatives to 189.

Background

The Philippines had been under martial law since 1972, with incumbent president Ferdinand Marcos ruling by decree. Prior to this, the Constitution of the Philippines was being drafted by the Constitutional Convention, whose delegates were elected in 1970. The Constitutional Convention approved the final draft of the constitution, which consisted of the abolition of the Philippine Congress and its replacement with an interim National Assembly consisting of the President, the Vice-President, the President of the Constitutional Convention, and members of the Senate and the House of Representatives in November 1972 and was later ratified on January 17, 1973, through so-called "citizens' assemblies". The Constitution was amended twice, on July 27–28, 1973 and February 27–28, 1975. The Constitution was amended once again on October 16–17, 1976 with the passage of "Amendment No. 6", which changed the name of the Interim National Assembly into the "Interim Batasang Pambansa", more commonly as the "Batasan".

Electoral system

The Batasang Pambansa has not more than 200 members, of which there are 190 seats for this election, of which 166 are elected via multi-member districts via plurality block vote, similar to the Philippine Senate elections in the past. Each region corresponds to a parliamentary district, with the number of seats dependent on the region's population.

An additional 14 members are reserved for sectoral seats. There are three sectors: agricultural labor, industrial labor, and youth, each having 1 seat each from Visayas and Mindanao, 2 seats for Luzon, and the youth sector having an additional 2 seats elected at-large. The seats are determined by electoral college within each sector, with the electoral colleges voting via first-past-the-post system.

Finally, the president may choose members of the Cabinet to be members.

Campaign

Lakas ng Bayan

Main article: Lakas ng Bayan

In 1978, former Senators Gerry Roxas and Jovito Salonga opted for the opposition Liberal Party boycott the elections. Having initially agreed to the boycott due to "the government already [having] the forces in its command and the entire machinery of politics which [they] do not have", former Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. later changed his mind and opted to take part in the elections to have the chance to "talk to the people," having been imprisoned for almost six (6) years.

Aquino was then able to field twenty other candidates for the seats in Region IV-A (Metro Manila) under a big tent political party, dubbed Lakas ng Bayan ("People's Power"). The party's acronym was "LABAN" ("fight" in Tagalog).

On March 10, 1978, he was entitled to one television interview on GTV's Face the Nation (hosted by Ronnie Nathanielsz) in his prison at Fort Bonifacio, and proved to a startled and impressed populace that imprisonment had neither dulled his rapier-like tongue nor dampened his fighting spirit. According to Aquino, he wanted to give the people a vehicle to express their frustration or their anger "if there is any," while recognizing that should all twenty-one opposition candidates win, as they are a still minority in the Batasan, "the only job in this particular combat now is fiscalization... Mr. Marcos will profound the thesis of government, we will supply the antithesis so that in the clash of ideas, the people will have the synthesis."

On April 6, 1978, the eve of elections, supporters of the Lakas ng Bayan (LABAN) came out in protest by asking bystanders and cars to make noise in support the opposition.

Kilusang Bagong Lipunan

President Marcos created the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (New Society Movement) as his political vehicle for the elections.

Results

Main article: Results of the 1978 Philippine parliamentary election

District elections

Party		Votes	%	Seats
	Kilusang Bagong Lipunan	147,885,493	71.13	137
	Lakas ng Bayan	21,541,600	10.36	0
	Pusyon Bisaya	9,495,416	4.57	13
	Bagong Lipunan-Kilusan ng Nagkakaisang Nacionalista, Liberal	7,981,060	3.84	14
	Mindanao Alliance	6,685,224	3.22	1
	Bicol Saro	2,105,599	1.01	0
	Young Philippines	1,471,381	0.71	0
	Concerned Citizens' Aggrupation	1,374,549	0.66	0
	Nacionalista Party	688,130	0.33	0
	Emancipated Scientists	392,819	0.19	0
	Partido ng Bagong Pilipino	140,365	0.07	0
	Democratic Party	112,140	0.05	0
	Philippine Labor Party	94,287	0.05	0
	Confederation of Ilocano Associations	81,594	0.04	0
	Consumers Party	69,216	0.03	0
	Citizens Union Progress Party	44,893	0.02	0
	Youth Democratic Movement	40,571	0.02	0
	Sovereign Citizens Party	18,814	0.01	0
	Partido Sambayanang Pilipino	15,050	0.01	0
	Lapiang Bagong Silang	11,457	0.01	0
	Bagong Anyo ng Buhay	11,190	0.01	0
	Independent	7,633,851	3.67	1
Sectoral seats				14
Appointed seats				10
Total		207,894,699	100.00	190
Registered voters/turnout		21,464,213	85.52
Source: Nohlen, Grotz, Hartmann, Graham and Santos and Teehankee

Vote share KBL   71.13% LABAN   10.36% PB   4.57% BLKNNL   3.84% MA   3.22% Others   6.88%

District seats KBL   82.53% LABAN   0.00% PB   7.83% BLKNNL   8.43% MA   0.60% Others   0.60%

Sectoral election

A separate election was held for the 14 members of the Batasang Pambansa's sectoral representatives.

This was via electoral college, with youth, industrial labor and agricultural labor as the three sectors. Each sector shall elect among themselves an electoral council, the members coming from provinces and cities. Each electoral council elected two members from Luzon, and a member each from Visayas and Mindanao, with two additional seats from the youth sector elected at-large, for a total of 14 seats.

Allegations of fraud

Marcos said that fraud was committed by "both sides" during the elections, but not on a scale that would have affected the results. Jovito Salonga disagreed with the assessment and said that he did not observe people celebrating KBL’s victory because they felt "like they’ve been cheated."

See also

• Commission on Elections
• Politics of the Philippines
• Philippine elections
• Interim Batasang Pambansa

Further reading

• Philippine Commission on Elections — Records and Statistics Division
• Philippine House of Representatives Congressional Library
• Pobre, Cesar P. (2000). Philippine Legislature 100 Years. ISBN 971-92245-0-9.
• Machado, Kit G. (February 1979). "The Philippines 1978: Authoritarian Consolidation Continues". Asian Survey. 19 (2): 131–140. doi:10.2307/2643779. JSTOR 2643779.
• "The first election". Martial Law Museum. Retrieved June 3, 2021.

External links

• Official website of the Commission on Elections