Talk:17th Congress of the Philippines

Parties of members
Can someone verify the parties of these members of Congress? Many have jumped ship to PDP-Laban, but some stayed or went elsewhere. Can anyone help? – H T  D  17:31, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
 * The current number of members in each political party is not final yet. I'm able to confirm the party affiliations of some representatives based on my original research. I would say that there's around 30 to 40 representatives in that list that still have unverified party affiliations. I'm still trying to contact the office of the House of Representatives to get an official list so we're able to verify every party affiliation but as of now, I'm still out of luck. Janbryan (talk) 03:54, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
 * In keeping with WP:V, if there's no source that the politician switched parties, we'll assume that s/he is still of the same party that she ran with in 2016. For example, I don't think Joel Villanueva (we're not just limiting ourselves to congressmen) reverted back to CIBAC from running under the Liberal Party, not that I know of. – H T  D  04:42, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not 100% sure if Villanueva still a member of LP but I know he's still the president of CIBAC based on http://news.abs-cbn.com/halalan2016/nation/05/12/16/will-joel-villanueva-stay-with-lp . I haven't found any source verifying his current party affiliation but I have noticed a trend on past news articles about LP senators and in those articles, only the other 5 LP senators are always mentioned. See:
 * http://news.abs-cbn.com/news/09/20/16/liberal-party-sticks-with-senate-majority-despite-de-limas-ouster
 * http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/817172/lp-senators-to-stay-with-senate-majority-despite-de-lima-ouster
 * http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2016/09/21/1625918/de-lima-lp-stay-majority
 * But again having speculations are not enough as a verification. I would also try to confirm the party affiliations of the senators by contacting the office of the Senate. Janbryan (talk) 05:12, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
 * While asking them for info may be good, perhaps asking them to publish it themselves would even be better. 01:00, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I've talked to the office of the House of Representatives and they told me that they stopped publishing this information in their website because this information is constantly changing. Janbryan (talk) 21:04, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * They could do better. They could put a date on it (accurate "as of" date). The website is updated frequently, I don't see how this would be "extra work" for them. In theory there are 2 waves when politicians change parties: during the filing of candidacies, and after the election result is known. There's a third one, if there's some big event that led to mass resignations from a party outside of elections. It's not that frequent. – H T  D  01:19, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
 * That's why I only did two columns for per party composition. One during the filing of candidacies and another for current composition, which reflects the massive party-switching after the newly-elected president is known, in which most politicians moves to the president's party. Janbryan (talk) 02:37, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
 * UPDATE: The Secretariat of the House of Representatives informed me that they can't provide the present party affiliations of all representatives as it's only mandated for representatives to inform the Secretariat whether they're part of majority, minority or independent blocs according to their House rules. The only option we have is to contact individual political parties. Janbryan (talk) 23:08, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
 * This is what I thought. It's good to try though if they have "bloc" standings. I guess it'll be more accurate to ask individual congressmen/women what their party is rather than the parties themselves, then ask them to include it in the Congress website. Newspapers are quite diligent in party switching, as there are usually press conferences whenever a new member swears in to a new party; we could use those for lack of official references. – H T  D  10:17, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Blocs
It's improper, in case of blocs, to use party names to label them. Either it's "majority" or "minority", or in some cases, "independent minority", "independent" or "none". This can be checked by how the votes went in the speakership and in the minority leadership elections. – H T  D  13:02, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Parties of senators
I won't be disputing the parties of the representatives as those seem to be well sourced. The senators though, isn't. Here are the questions: Aside from these people I'm mostly satisfied with the party standings. – H T  D  15:15, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Did these people ever had a swearing in ceremony to become PDP-Laban members? If they didn't, these should be reverted back to their original parties:
 * Alan Peter Cayetano (NP)
 * JV Ejercito (UNA)
 * Juan Miguel Zubiri (Independent)
 * Was Antonio Trillanes ever expelled from the Nacionalista Party? He did famously said that he was from the Nacionalista Party in Hard Talk.
 * I just researched about these and based on this articles https://news.mb.com.ph/2018/01/31/re-electionist-senators-plan-to-band-together-for-may-2019-mid-term-polls/ and http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/957179/pantaleon-alvarez-pdp-laban-2019-senate-slate-members-duterte-elections, JV Ejercito has not joined the PDP-Laban and actually a member of PMP. I'm not entirely sure about the other senators especially Trillanes. As far as I know, Nacionalista has an ongoing alliance with PDP-Laban and I don't know if this means that Trillanes isn't a NP member anymore as he's a usual critic to Duterte. Why is party loyalty so uncommon in our country?! haha Janbryan (talk) 01:35, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I have been looking for news if Trillanes has been expelled but can't find anything. It's safe to assume that he's still Nacionalista, same with Cayetano.
 * I've found somewhere that Zubiri's with PDP-Laban now. I just can't see it.
 * So we're good with Cayetano and Trillanes staying with NP, Zubiri with PDP-Laban, and Ejercito with PMP, correct? – H T  D  22:51, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
 * P.S. This is important so that we'd have accurate numbers in this article, Senate of the Philippines, Congress of the Philippines, Philippine Senate election, 2019 and the parliamentary diagrams.

My count using the parties on this page is (House/Senate): For blocs the standing is: Also, I'm partly amused on Tupay Loong becoming a PDP-Laban member before his start of his term; he died on 12:30 a.m. of June 30th, terms start later at 12 noon. He has liver cancer and could not have possibly been physically able to swear-in. – H T  D  00:47, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
 * PDP-LBN 114/3
 * LP 46/6
 * NPC 29/3
 * NP 17/2
 * NUP 17/0
 * LAKAS 3/0
 * UNA 2/3
 * LDP 1/1
 * IND 1/4
 * PARTYLIST 59/0
 * OTHER 3 (locals)/1 (Akbayan)
 * Majority 258/17
 * Minority 16/6
 * Independent minority 14/0

Update: I've updated the party standings on several articles, and changed the parties of Trillanes to Nacionalista from independent, Cayetano to Nacionalista from PDP-Laban, Ejercito to PMP from PDP-Laban. Will wait for a few more days to change Loong's party. – H T  D  13:04, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Independent minority
Despite the rules, Suarez was recognized as the minority leader. Should we consider Quimbo’s faction and Alvarez’s faction as the new independent minority? --Janbryan (talk) 08:20, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Quimbo's bloc consists of:
 * 1. Miro Quimbo
 * 2. Francis Gerald Abaya
 * 3. Vicente Alcala
 * 4. Gary Alejano
 * 5. Isagani Amatong
 * 6. Kaka Bag-ao
 * 7. Teddy Baguilat
 * 8. Jorge Banal
 * 9. Jose Christopher Belmonte
 * 10. Emmanuel Billones
 * 11. Gabriel Bordado, Jr.
 * 12. Arlene Brosas
 * 13. Ariel Casilao
 * 14. France Castro
 * 15. Raul Daza
 * 16. Emmi De Jesus
 * 17. Sarah Jane Elago
 * 19. Edgar Erice
 * 18. Edcel Lagman
 * 19. Jocelyn Limkaichong
 * 20. Josephine Ramirez-Sato
 * 21. Amihilda Sangcopan
 * 22. Antonio Tinio
 * 23. Tom Villarin
 * 24. Carlos Isagani Zarate

Alvarez's bloc consists of:
 * 1. Pantaleon Alvarez
 * 2. Rudy Fariñas
 * 3. Eugene Miguel De Vera
 * 4. Rodito Albano
 * 5. Juan Pablo Bondoc
 * 6. Manuel Monsour Del Rosario
 * 7. Ruwel Peter Gonzaga
 * 8. Lucy Torres-Gomez
 * 9. Roger Mercado
 * 10. Mauyag Papandayan
 * 11. Aileen Radaza
 * 12. Arnel Ty
 * 13. Reynaldo Umali