Elections for the Second National Assembly were held on November 8, 1938, under a new law that allowed

block voting Block or bloc voting refers to a class of electoral systems where multiple candidates are elected simultaneously. They do not guarantee minority representation and allow a group of voters (a voting bloc) to ensure that only their preferred candi ...

, which favored the governing

Nacionalista Party The Nacionalista Party (Filipino language, Filipino and Spanish language in the Philippines, Spanish: ''Partido Nacionalista''; , NP) is a political party in the Philippines which is the oldest existing party in the country and in Southeast Asi ...

(formerly divided into the Democratica and the Pro-Independencia factions, which later reconciled). As expected all the 98 seats of the National Assembly went to the Nacionalistas.

José Yulo José Yulo Yulo Sr. (September 24, 1894 – October 27, 1976) was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines (May 7, 1942 – July 9, 1945) during the Japanese Occupation and was Speaker of the National Assembly of the Philippines ...

, who was Quezon's Secretary of Justice from 1934 to 1938, was elected Speaker.

Summary

Ahead of the first midterm polls in the country, the two factions of the

had already reunited. The party went into the 1938 Elections with the confidence of having practically every branch of government under the control of its stalwarts. This reconsolidation of political forces left the opposition in tatters, with the Allied Minorities, a loose caucus of opposition parties, failing to stop the Nacionalista bid. The elections of 1938 proved to be historic in two ways: It was the first and last time that a single party would secure 100 percent of the seats in the legislature, with the Nacionalistas winning all 98 seats; and it ushered in the years of one-party rule in the country.

Results

Contributions

The Second National Assembly embarked on passing legislations strengthening the economy, the cloud of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

loomed over the horizon. Certain laws passed by the First National Assembly were modified or repealed to meet existing realities. A controversial

immigration law Immigration law includes the national statutes, Primary and secondary legislation, regulations, and Precedent, legal precedents governing immigration into and deportation from a country. Strictly speaking, it is distinct from other matters such as ...

that set an annual limit of 50 immigrants per country whichImmigration Act of 1940 (CA No. 613), Sec. 13
''Accessed on April 13, 2007'' affected mostly Chinese and

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

ese nationals escaping the Sino-Japanese War was passed in 1940. Since the law bordered on foreign relations it required the approval of the U.S. president which was nevertheless obtained. When the result of the 1939

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

was published, the National Assembly updated the apportionment of legislative districts, which became the basis for the 1941 elections.

References

External links

Official website of the Commission on Elections
{{Philippine elections

1938 Events January * January 1 – state-owned enterprise, State-owned railway networks are created by merger, in France (SNCF) and the Netherlands (Nederlandse Spoorwegen – NS). * January 20 – King Farouk of Egypt marries Saf ...

National Assembly Election