Batasang Pambansa

Batasang Pambansa is where members of the Philippines House of Representatives hold their sessions. Comprising 218 elected members and 12 presidential appointees, the legislators debate economic, social and other issues, sometimes heatedly. Batasang Pambansa is located in Batasan Road, Batasan Hills, Quezon City, Manila .

Martial Law was declared by President Ferdinand Marcos on September 3, 1972. He imposed curfew, banned public assemblies, silenced the free press, outlawed protest movements, arrested opposition politicians, dissolved the bicameral Congress and created the semi-parliament, called the "Batasang Pambansa."

The Batasang Pambansa complex itself was begun under the Marcos Administration and completed in the 1980's to house the Batasang Pambansa, a unicameral parliament. However, under the 1987 Constitution, the legislature again became bicameral. The reinstated Senate was housed in the original Legislative building in Manila until the complex was turned over to the National Museum of the Philippines under the Ramos Administration, and has since moved to the GSIS building on reclaimed land on Manila Bay in Manila.

Batasan Road, the road on which the walled and heavily guarded complex lies, is lined with squatter dwellings, a telling sign of the progress made within the complex's walls.