The Association of Philippine Electric Cooperatives, also known as the APEC Partylist is a

party list An electoral list is a grouping of candidates for election, usually found in proportional or mixed electoral systems, but also in some plurality electoral systems. An electoral list can be registered by a political party (a party list) or can c ...

in the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

representing

cooperatives A cooperative (also known as co-operative, coöperative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democr ...

in the electricity sector, mainly urban and suburban areas. Sunny Rose Madamba, Ernesto Pablo, and Edgar Valdez are the party's three representatives in the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...

. In the 14 May 2007

election An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold Public administration, public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative d ...

, the party won 2 seats in the nationwide party-list vote.

History

The Association of Philippine Electric Cooperatives (APEC) was formed for the purpose of joining the

1998 Philippine House of Representatives elections Elections for the House of Representatives of the Philippines were held on May 11, 1998. Held on the same day as the presidential election, the party of the incumbent president, Fidel V. Ramos' Lakas-NUCD-UMDP, won majority of the seats in the H ...

, the first ever election where party-list groups were elected to the lower house of the Congress. Five months prior to the election,

electric Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...

mostly from

Mindanao Mindanao ( ) is the List of islands of the Philippines, second-largest island in the Philippines, after Luzon, and List of islands by population, seventh-most populous island in the world. Located in the southern region of the archipelago, the ...

hastily formed APEC including its names and nominees. It is the only organization garner more than 4 percent votes. This along with the consequential lack of a track record caused APEC's eligibility be questioned before the

Commission on Elections An election commission is a body charged with overseeing the implementation of electioneering process of any country. The formal names of election commissions vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and may be styled an electoral commission, a c ...

(Comelec) which was later won by the group. APEC insisted that it can't be faulted for the Comelec's late issuance of the implementing rules and regulations for Republic Act No. 7941 of the Partylist law. The Supreme Court dismissed the disqualification case against APEC in 2002. Former APEC representative Edgar Valdez was charged with receiving P57.787 million in kickbacks through bogus foundations formed by

Janet Lim-Napoles Janet Lim-Napoles (born Janet Luy Lim; January 15, 1964) is a Filipina businesswoman who is believed to have masterminded the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) Scam. She was convicted of plunder for her involvement in the PDAF Scam a ...

. In February 2015, the

Sandiganbayan The Sandiganbayan () is a special Appellate court, appellate collegial court in the Philippines that has jurisdiction over criminal and civil cases involving Graft (politics), graft and corrupt practices and other offenses committed by public ...

anti-graft court issued a warrant of arrest against Valdez on plunder charges in connection with the

pork barrel scam The Priority Development Assistance Fund scam, also called the PDAF scam or the pork barrel scam, was a political scandal involving the alleged misuse by several members of the Congress of the Philippines of their Priority Development Assistanc ...

Electoral performance

Representatives to Congress

References

Party-lists represented in the House of Representatives of the Philippines Cooperative parties Cooperatives in the Philippines {{Philippines-party-stub