Turnout 74.34% 2.0% 9,487,837 5,573,835 26.25% 15.42% Start date May 10, 2010 | 15,208,678 9,487,837 42.08% 26.25% 4,095,839 1,125,878 | |
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Winner Benigno Aquino III | ||
The Philippine presidential and vice presidential elections of 2010 were held on Monday, May 10, 2010. The ruling President of the Philippines, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, was barred from seeking re-election by the 1987 Constitution, thus necessitating an election to select the 15th President.
Contents
- Electoral system
- Timeline
- Nominations
- Opinion polls
- Exit poll
- Graphs
- Results
- For president
- For vice president
- Close provincescities
- COMELEC
- PPCRV
- President
- Vice President
- Campaign expenses
- Literature
- References
Incumbent Vice-President Noli de Castro was allowed to seek re-election though he could have possibly sought the presidency. As he didn't offer himself in any manner of candidacy at the election, his successor was determined as the 15th Vice President of the Philippines. Although most presidential candidates have running mates, the president and vice president are elected separately, and the winning candidates may be of different political parties.
This election was also the first time that the Commission of Elections (COMELEC) implemented full automation of elections, pursuant to Republic Act 9369, "An act authorizing the Commission on Elections to use an Automated Election System in the May 11, 1998 National or Local Elections and in subsequent National And Local Electoral Exercises".
The results of the congressional canvassing showed that Senator Benigno Aquino III of the Liberal Party won by a plurality, although he had won with the highest percentage of votes since 1986, but not enough to have the largest margin of victory, even in elections held after 1986.
Meanwhile, in the election for the vice-presidency, Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay of the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) defeated Senator Mar Roxas of the Liberal Party in the second-narrowest margin in the history of vice presidential elections. Aquino and Binay were proclaimed in a joint session of Congress on June 9, and took their oaths on June 30, 2010. Roxas filed an electoral protest to the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET; the Supreme Court) on July 10, 2010.
Electoral system
The election is held every six years after 1992, on the second Monday of May. The incumbent president is term limited. The incumbent vice president may run for two consecutive terms. As Joseph Estrada, who was elected in 1998, was able to run in 2010, it is undetermined if the term limit is for life, or is only limited to the incumbent.
The plurality voting system is used to determine the winner: the candidate with the highest number of votes, whether or not one has a majority, wins the presidency. The vice presidential election is a separate election, is held on the same rules, and voters may split their ticket. Both winners will serve six-year terms commencing on the noon of June 30, 2016 and ending on the same day six years later.
The candidates are determined via political conventions of the different political parties. As most political parties in the Philippines are loosely structured, with most politicians switching parties from time to time, a person not nominated by a party may either run as an independent, get drafted by another party, or form their own party. The candidacy process is supervised by the Commission on Elections (usually referred by its abbreviation "COMELEC") which also regulates and holds the elections. It is not uncommon for the Commission to disqualify certain candidates as "nuisance candidates" or those candidates who have no capacity to mount a nationwide campaign. This usually limits the candidates to a small number. The campaign will run for three months, beginning in early February 2010 and ending on the eve of the election, the Vote Counting Machines will be tested and be booted up at 5 AM in the morning and the shading of candidates will be on 7:30 in the morning CNN Philippines source says.
The counting of votes is initially held in the individual voting precincts, which are all then tabulated for the different municipalities and cities, then to the provinces, and finally to Congress, which is the final canvasser of the votes. Election protests are handled by the Supreme Court, when it sits as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal.
Timeline
The COMELEC-mandated election period for this election was from January 10 to June 9, 2010.
Nominations
In the Philippines, the multi-party system is implemented. Sometimes a coalition of different parties are made notably this year are the Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino and PDP-LABAN, and Nacionalista Party and NPC. Each party hosts candidates who go through a nomination process to determine the presidential nominee for that party.
The list below is listed in the alphabetical order of the party:
Opinion polls
The Philippines has two primary opinion polling companies: Social Weather Stations (SWS) and Pulse Asia. The following are the last released surveys prior to the election by SWS and Pulse Asia:
Exit poll
SWS conducted an exit poll. SWS's 2004 exit poll missed by a large margin the result.
According to the SWS exit poll, 45% of Muslims voted for Binay, while only 17% chose Roxas and 28% for Legarda. About 75% of the members of the Iglesia ni Cristo voted for Roxas. Despite having the endorsement of several Catholic bishops, de los Reyes only got 0.2% of the Catholic vote, while Aquino, despite being branded by some Catholic organizations as not pro-life, got 44%.
Graphs
Plotted as a 3-period moving average of the surveys included in Opinion polling in the Philippine presidential election, 2010.Results
The candidate in each position with the highest amount of votes is declared the winner; there is no runoff. Congress shall canvass the votes in joint public session.
When there are two or more candidates who have an equal and highest amount of votes, Congress, voting separately via majority vote, will choose among the candidates who have an equal and highest amount of votes to be the president.
The Supreme Court shall "be the sole judge of all contests relating to the election, returns, and qualifications of the President or Vice President".
There are several parallel tallies, with the Congressional canvass the official tally. The COMELEC used the election returns from the polling precincts; the Congress as the national board of canvassers will base their official tally from the certificates of canvass from the provinces and cities, which were derived from the election returns. The accredited citizen's arm, the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) also used the election returns from the polling precincts. In theory, all tallies must be identitcal.
For president
Congress in joint session as the National Board of Canvassers convened in the Batasang Pambansa Complex in Quezon City, the home of the House of Representatives. Only a committee canvassed the votes, with the same number of members from both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
On June 8, Congress finished canvassing all of the votes, with the final canvass showing that Aquino and Binay had won. Aquino and Binay were proclaimed as president-elect and vice president-elect in a joint session on June 9. The president-elect and vice president-elect were inaugurated on June 30, 2010.
In case a president has not been determined by June 30, the vice president-elect shall act as president until a president has been determined. If both positions have not yet been determined, the President of the Senate, or the Speaker of the House of Representatives if the former is unable to do so, shall act as president. Congress shall enact a law on who acts as president if neither of officials already stated are unable to do so.
For vice president
The candidate with the highest number of votes wins the vice presidency. In case when two or more candidates have the highest number of votes, one of them shall be chosen by the vote of a majority of all the members of both Houses of the Congress, voting separately.
Close provinces/cities
Margin of victory is less than 5% for the presidential election:
Margin of victory is less than 5% for the vice presidential election:
COMELEC
The COMELEC originally released results for president and vice president based from election returns but stopped in order not to preempt Congress. The COMELEC held their tally at the Philippine International Convention Center at Pasay.
PPCRV
The PPCRV held their tally at the Pope Pius Center in Manila.
President
Source: Exit polls conducted by Pulse Asia
Vice President
Source: Exit polls conducted by Pulse Asia
Campaign expenses
According to the Fair Elections Act, the COMELEC's cap on spending is 10 pesos per voter for each candidate and another 5 pesos per voter for one's political party; since there are about 50 million voters, a candidate can spend up to 500 million pesos and a party can spend an additional 250 million pesos.
The following is a list of published campaign expenses; the COMELEC has no ability to confirm if these were true.