List of special elections to the Philippine Congress

These are the special elections (known outside the Philippines and the United States as by-elections) to the Congress of the Philippines. The Philippines holds two types of special elections: those that were supposed to be held on election day but were delayed, and those held after an office has become vacant. This article describes the second type.

As stipulated in Republic Act (R.A.) No. 6645 approved on December 28, 1987, once a vacancy occurs in the Senate at least 18 months, or in the House of Representatives at least (1) year, before the next scheduled election, the Commission on Elections, upon receipt of a resolution from the chamber where the vacancy occurred, shall schedule a special election. The special election will then be held not earlier than 45 days and not later than 90 days from the date of the resolution.

However, Republic Act No. 7166 approved on November 26, 1991, amended parts of R.A. No. 6645. When a vacancy in the House of Representatives occurs before one year before the expiration of the term, the special election shall be held not earlier than 60 days and not later than 90 days after occurrence of the vacancy. For the Senate, if the vacancy occurs one year before the expiration of the term, the special election shall be held on the day of the next succeeding regular election.

With the passed of Republic Act No. 8295 in 1997, if there is only one candidate running for the position, that candidate would be proclaimed as the winner, and an election would no longer be held. This is unlike in regularly scheduled elections where voting would still be held, and the candidate has to get one vote in order to be elected.

Not all vacancies that occurred a year before the next regular election resulted in a special election. To save money, the Speaker appoints a caretaker representative from a nearby district. In same cases a caretaker representative was appointed while an election date was considered.

As with general elections, special elections are usually scheduled on a Monday. In some cases, election days are declared as holidays.

Since the 1998 elections, there have been two types of elected representatives, those who represent single-member districts and those elected via the party-list system. When a vacancy occurs for a party-list representative, the next-ranked nominee from the party replaces his predecessor. For district representatives, a special election will be held to determine who shall succeed the predecessor. During the Third Philippine Republic, where representatives had four-year terms, the special election was held together with the mid-term election.

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