The Lone Legislative District of the City of General Santos is the single representation of the

highly urbanized city A city ( or ) is one of the units of local government in the Philippines. All Philippine cities are chartered cities (Filipino: ), whose existence as corporate and administrative entities is governed by their own specific municipal charters in a ...

General Santos General Santos, officially the City of General Santos and abbreviated as GenSan, is a Cities of the Philippines#Legal classification, highly urbanized city in the Regions of the Philippines, region of Soccsksargen, Philippines. According to ...

. It has been represented in the

House of Representatives of the Philippines The House of Representatives (; '','' thus commonly referred to as ''Kamara'') is the lower house of Congress of the Philippines, Congress, the bicameral legislature of the Philippines, with the Senate of the Philippines as the upper house. The ...

since 2022. It is currently represented in the 19th Congress by

Loreto Acharon Loreto Busgano Acharon (born December 10, 1961) is a Filipino lawyer and politician who served as the representative of the Lone District of General Santos in the House of Representatives of the Philippines from 2022 to 2025. Before his electio ...

of the

Nationalist People's Coalition The Nationalist People's Coalition (NPC) is a conservatism, conservative political party in the Philippines which was founded in 1992 by presidential candidate Danding Cojuangco. History Formation In 1990, amid political and economic unce ...

(NPC).

History

Prior to gaining separate representation, areas now under the jurisdiction of General Santos were represented under the

Department of Mindanao and Sulu The Department of Mindanao and Sulu was an agency of the United States colonial administration in the Philippine Islands task to administer all Muslim-dominated areas in the territory. It was established on July 23, 1914, pursuant to Act No. 2 ...

(1917–1935), the historical

Cotabato Province Cotabato, formerly and still commonly referred to as North Cotabato and officially the Province of Cotabato, is a landlocked province in the Philippines located in the Soccsksargen region in Mindanao. Its capital is the city of Kidapawan, the ...

(1935–1967), Region XI (1978–1984) and

South Cotabato South Cotabato, officially the Province of South Cotabato, is a Provinces of the Philippines, province in the Philippines located in the Soccsksargen Regions of the Philippines, region in Mindanao. Its capital is Koronadal (also the regional cen ...

(

lone district Lone may refer to: People *Destroy Lonely, a nickname for the artist * Lone (given name), a given name (including a list of people with this name) * Lone (musician), Matt Cutler, an electronic musician from Nottingham, United Kingdom * Lone (surn ...

, 1967–1972; at-large district, 1984–1986; first district, 1987–2019). Even after becoming a

independent from South Cotabato in 1988,

remained part of the province's congressional representation. The city only gained a separate representative with the passage of Republic Act No. 11243 on March 11, 2019, which segregated General Santos from the first congressional district of

to form its own congressional district. Given that it was already too late for 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 ...

to change the old congressional district configuration data in the automated election system in time for the May 2019 polls, COMELEC Resolution No. 10524 was promulgated on April 11, 2019, to delay the elections for both the new lone congressional district of General Santos and the newly reconfigured first congressional district of South Cotabato to a date no less than six months from May 13, 2019. By virtue of COMELEC Resolution No. 10552 promulgated on July 25, 2019, the date of elections for the lone district of General Santos was set for October 26, 2019. However, on September 10, 2019, the

Supreme Court of the Philippines The Supreme Court (; colloquially referred to as the ' (also used in formal writing), is the highest court in the Philippines. It was established by the Taft Commission on June 11, 1901, through the enactment of Act No. 136, which abolished th ...

declared COMELEC Resolution No. 10524 null and void for violating the law, when COMELEC set separate special elections for the reconfigured 1st Congressional District of South Cotabato and the newly created Lone Congressional District of General Santos instead of using the new district boundaries in the next regular (i.e., 2022) election, as RA 11243 intended. In the same ruling, the Supreme Court ordered COMELEC to convene a Special Provincial Board of Canvassers to proclaim the winning candidate, Shirlyn L. Bañas-Nograles who garnered 68.55% of the votes cast in the May 2019 election, as the duly elected representative of the 1st Congressional District of South Cotabato, including General Santos. The Supreme Court ruling effectively sets the election of the first separate representative for General Santos to the

2022 elections The following elections were scheduled to occur in 2022. The National Democratic Institute also maintains a calendar of elections around the world. * 2022 United Nations Security Council election * 2022 national electoral calendar * 2022 local e ...

. Subsection C in the Section 1 of the Republic Act No. 11243 that designated General Santos as the Third district of South Cotabato caused confusion of the bill's title, Consequently, Representative Ferdinand Hernandez filed the House Bill No. 10021 that officially mandate and legally clarify the City of General Santos as a lone district, separate from South Cotabato. It passed in the third and final reading in the House on September 15, 2021 and in the Senate on January 31, 2022 with an amendment where the first election for the reapportioned seats will be on May 12, 2025. The bill lapsed into a law without then-President

Rodrigo Duterte Rodrigo Roa Duterte (, ; born March 28, 1945) is a Filipino lawyer and politician who served as the 16th president of the Philippines from 2016 to 2022. He is the first Philippine president from Mindanao, and is the oldest person to assum ...

's signature on June 2, 2022, and was indexed under the Republic Act No. 11804.

Representation history

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Legislative district of General Santos

Politics of General Santos Constituencies established in 2021

History

Representation history

See also

References