CASE DIGEST : BETERINA VS COMELEC

G.R. Nos. 95347-49 January 6, 1992

SALACNIB F. BATERINA, CANDIDO BALBIN, GUILLERMO BALLESTEROS, NATHANIEL ESCOBAR, BENJAMIN GALAPIA, LEONARDO ROLDAN, FILEMON SISON, ERWIN REYES-ULEP, EVELYN VALDEZ, OCTAVIO VILLANUEVA, COALITION FOR GOOD GOVERNMENT OF ILOCOS SUR, AND LAKAS NG BANSA, petitioners, 

vs.

COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS, EVARISTO "TITONG" SINGSON, CARIDAD ALCANTARA, MARIANO TAJON, WINSTON AGUIRRE, HEREDIO BELLO, BENJAMIN BUGARIN, TERESITA CORDERO, JOSE DIVINA, RODOLFO GALIMA, DEOGRACIAS VICTOR SAVELLANO, VICTOR VILORIA and AND THE PROVINCIAL BOARD CANVASSERS OF ILOCOS SUR, respondents.

Facts : Petitioner Salacnib F. Baterina was a candidate for Governor of Ilocos Sur in the special local elections held on 25 January 1988. The other petitioners, Octavio Villanueva and Evelyn Valdez, Felimon Sison, Leonardo Roldan, Gil Ballesteros, Benjamin Galapia, Erwin Reyes-Ulep, and Nathaniel Escobar, were candidates for Vice Governor and Provincial Board Members, respectively, in the same local elections. Petitioners ran under the banner of the Lakas ng Bansa. Private respondent Evaristo Singson, on the other hand, was also a candidate for Governor of Ilocos Sur. Private respondent Mariano Tajon was a candidate for Vice Governor. The rest of the private respondents were candidates for the other disputed positions.

In the course of the canvass proceedings, verbal objections were raised by petitioners to certain election returns based on the grounds mentioned in Sections 233 (lost or destroyed election returns), 234 (material defects in the election returns), 235 (tampered or falsified election returns) and 236 (discrepancies in election returns), in relation to the preparation, transmission, receipt and custody of the election returns. The objections were aimed at excluding the election returns from the canvass.

The BOARD, in several Resolutions dated 29, 30 and 31 January 1988, denied the objections and protests of petitioners mainly on the ground that the alleged defects of the election returns were merely formal and did not affect their authenticy, validity and genuineness as to warrant their exclusion from the canvass. Petitioners filed with the BOARD notices of appeal from its rulings.

On 30 January 1988, petitioners filed with the COMELEC a "Petition Contesting the Legality of the Proceedings of the Board of Canvassers with Motion to Restrain Canvassing and Proclamation and/or Suspend the Effects of any Proclamation," docketed as SPC No. 88-453 and assigned to the First Division (Suspension of Proclamation Case). The Petition sought the suspension of the canvassing and proclamation of any winning candidate.

On 31 January 1988 the BOARD issued the "Certification of Canvass of Votes and Proclamation of the Winning Candidates for Provincial Offices, January 18, 1988 Elections," proclaiming respondents Evaristo C. Singson as the duly elected Governor of Ilocos Sur, Mariano M. Tajon as Vice Governor and the others as Members of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan of the province.

On 23 March 1985, the First Division of the COMELEC issued a Minute Resolution dismissing the Suspension of Proclamation Case (SPC No. 88-453) filed on 30 January 1988, on the ground that the winning candidates had already been proclaimed on "21 January 1988" (should be 31 January 1988). It advised the petitioners to file instead an election protest with the COMELEC if desired

Petitioners appealed the dismissal of the Petition alleging error in that the proclamation was made on 31 January 1988, not 21 January, as stated in the First Division Resolution. Petitioners also alleged that the First Division failed to consider the other petition filed by them in the same SPC No. 88-453, dated 9 February 1988, thereby effectively dismissing said petition without notice and hearing in violation of Sections 242 and 246 of the Omnibus Election Code.

On 5 June 1989, the Second Division of the COMELEC promulgated a decision in SPC Nos. 88-490 and 88-506 (Rollo, p. 124) dismissing petitioners' "Appeal" and "Appeal Memorandum" on the ground that no substantial objection had been raised against the election returns in accordance with Sections 233-236 and Section 245 of the Omnibus Election Code.

On 10 June 1989, petitioners appealed the Decision of the Second Division (in SPC Nos. 88-490 and 88-506) to the COMELEC en banc. On 6 September 1990, that body issued a per curiam Resolution, in SPC Nos. 88-453, 58-490, and 88-506, dismissing petitioners' appeals from the rulings rendered by its First and Second Divisions on the ground that no genuine pre-proclamation controversies had been raised by petitioners.

That dismissal prompted petitioners to avail of these Certiorari proceedings.

ISSUE : WON the COMELEC be faulted with grave abuse of discretion in upholding the dismissal of the Suspension of Proclamation Case (SPC No. 88-453) and of petittoners' "Appeals" (SPC Nos. 88-490 and 88-506) ordered by its First and Second Divisions respectively

HELD : The Court thinks not. The Suspension of Proclamation Case, filed on 30 January, 1988 (SPC No. 88-453), was dismissed by the First Division considering "that the winning candidates have been proclaimed on January 21, 1988"

The grounds raised by petitioners for the exclusion of the election returns from the canvassing, as stated in their "Appeal Memorandum" before the COMELEC (Rollo, p. 92), refer to the failure to close the entries with the signatures of the election inspectors; lack of inner and outer paper seals; canvassing by the BOARD of copies not intended for it; lack of time and date of receipt by the BOARD of election returns; lack of signatures of petitioners' watchers; and lack of authority of the person receiving the election returns.

While the aforesaid grounds may, indeed, involve a violation of the rules governing the preparation and delivery of election returns for canvassing, they do not necessarily affect the authenticity and genuineness of the subject election returns as to warrant their exclusion from the canvassing. The grounds for objection to the election returns made by petitioners are clearly defects in form insufficient to support a conclusion that the election returns were tampered with or spurious. "A conclusion that an election return is obviously manufactured or false and consequently should be disregarded in the canvass must be approached with extreme caution and only upon the most convincing proof" (Estrada v. Navarro, L-28340, 29 December 1967, 21 SCRA 1514). It is only when the election returns are palpably irregular that they may be rejected (Mutuc v. Commission on Elections, L-28517, 21 February 1968, 22 SCRA 662). On the basis of formal defects alone, such palpable irregularity can not be said to have been established herein.

The foregoing provision negates the contention that an election return is spurious owing to the failure of a watcher to affix his signature. Under this provision, a watcher signs the election returns only if he is available. If he is not, or is unwilling, or refuses to sign them, any other watcher present may be required to sign. In this case, the signature of any watcher present is not even a mandatory requirement as can be gleaned from the text of the provision. In other words, while the signing of an election return by a watcher is a measure intended to discourage the preparation of falsified returns, the absence of said signature does not give rise to a presumption that the election returns are manufactured or spurious and should consequently be excluded in the canvass. Otherwise, a party's watcher can easily cause the nullification of election returns reflecting results unfavorable to the candidate he is representing by simply refusing to sign the returns.

In fine, the BOARD correctly included the contested election returns in the canvass as they did not suffer from any serious infirmities affecting their integrity. It is the "ministerial function of a board of canvassers to count the results as they appear in the returns which on their face does not reveal any irregularities nor falsities" (Demafiles v. Commission on Elections, L-28396, 29 December 1967, 21 SCRA 1462).

Petitioners also assail the dismissal of their petitions by the COMELEC without hearing. Suffice it to cite the ruling in Ilarde v. Commission on Elections, (L-31446, 23 January 1970, 31 SCRA 72) that "canvass proceedings are administrative and summary in nature, and a strong prima facie case backed up by a specific offer of the evidence and indication of its nature and importance has to be made out to warrant the reception of evidence aliunde and the presentation of witnesses and the delays necessarily entailed thereby. Otherwise, the paralyzation of canvassing and proclamation leading to a vacuum in an important office could easily be brought about." In their case before us, the petitions and appeals filed by petitioners in their pre-proclamation cases before the COMELEC did not even point prima facie to a tampering of election returns, nor to returns with patent erasures and superimpositions, but merely raised objections based on defects that are, at best, formal in nature. The COMELEC, therefore, did not gravely abuse its discretion in concluding that in the absence of genuine pre-proclamation issues a full-blown hearing was rendered unnecessary.