USO DAN AGUAM, PETITIONER, VS. THE COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS AND ALIM BALINDONG, RESPONDENTS.

In this, a petition for certiorari and prohibition with prayer
for preliminary injunction, petitioner Uso Dan Aguam seeks to annul the resolution of the respondent
Commission on Elections (Comelec) of April 27, 1968
declaring that it has jurisdiction to open the ballot box in Precinct 8 of the
municipality of Ganassi, Lanao
del Sur, and to conduct an investigation into the
authentic electoral return therefrom, upon petition
of respondent Alim Balindong.  Petitioner levels a major attack on the
jurisdiction of Comelec to inquire into the matters
set forth in private respondent’s petition therein, hereinafter to be
recited.  Petitioner reasons out that
that petition was filed out of time, and that after proclamation Comelec is bereft of power to order the opening of the
ballot box to determine the genuineness of an election return.

But first to the controlling facts.

In the November, 1967 elections, amongst the aspirants for Mayor
of Ganassi, Lanao del Sur, were: 
petitioner Uso Dan Aguam,
official Liberal Party candidate; respondent Alim Balindong, an independent Liberal; and Ali Daud B. Marohombsar, official
candidate of the Nacionalistas. 2

It would appear that at the canvassing held in Marawi City on November 20, 1967, petitioner Uso Dan Aguam was proclaimed
Mayor-elect of Ganassi.  The minutes thereof reveal a close contest
between petitioner and respondent: 
Petitioner Uso Dan Aguam
received 575 votes; respondent Datu Alim Balindong, 572 votes.

On November 21, 1967, apparently unaware of the canvassing held
at Marawi City the day before, respondent Alim Balindong went to the Court
of First Instance of Lanao del Sur^[1]
to restrain the board of canvassers from canvassing the votes for mayoral,
candidates and from proclaiming the results thereof.  Bases of the petition are that 43 voters were
permitted to cast their votes in Precinct 5 by virtue of an unlawful order of
the municipal judge and that the election returns in Precinct 8 were tampered
with to favor petitioner herein. 
Petitioner there intervened and, inter alia,
challenged the jurisdiction of the
Court of First Instance.  The case ended
up with the court’s order of December 21, 1967 dismissing the petition upon a
no-jurisdiction ground.  Allegedly, copy
of this order was served on respondent Alim Balindong on January 4, 1968.

Meanwhile, on December 30, 1967, petitioner took his oath and
thereafter assumed office as Mayor of Ganassi.

It was on January 6, 1968 when respondent Alim
Balindong went to Comelec
with a petition for the annulment of the November 20, 1967 canvass and
proclamation, and for the opening of the ballot box in Precinct 8.  The November 20 canvass and proclamation were
there assailed by respondent Alim Balindong
from different directions.  Averment was
there made that the board of canvassers was illegally constituted; that fraud
and irregularities, which were made in con­nivance between the municipal
treasurer and petitioner Uso Dan Aguam,
attended the canvassing; that no notice thereof was given to said re­spondent
and other candidates; that the canvassing and proclamation were kept under
wraps; that the election return for Precinct 8 was tampered with by making it appear that Alim
Balindong obtained 8 votes in said precinct when in
fact he obtained 13 votes; and that as a result of such tampering, petitioner Uso Dan Aguam herein was made to
win against respondent Alim Balindong
by a margin of 3 votes.

The foregoing petition was met by petitioner Uso
Dan Aguam with an answer and a motion to
dismiss.  After making certain denials and admissions, petitioner herein raised in Comelec the issues, amongst others, of jurisdiction and
time-bar.

It was while the case was
pending in Comelec, after the parties have been
heard, that the controverted order of April 27, 1968
was issued.

Hence, the present
petition.  To maintain the status quo, we
issued a cease-and-desist order on May 10, 1968, upon a cash bond of
P1,000.00.  Upon the petition,
respondents’ returns, and the oral arguments, the case is now before us for
decision.

1.       By constitutional
mandate, Comelec “shall have exclusive charge of
the enforcement and administration of all laws relative to the conduct of
elections and shall exercise all other functions which may be conferred upon it
by law.” The Constitution enjoins Comelec to
“decide, save those involving the right to vote, all administrative
questions, affecting elections.” And, all of these are aimed at achieving
an ideal:  “free, orderly, and
honest elections.”^[2]
Implementing the constitutional precept, Congress legislated in Section 3 of
the Revised Election Code that, in addition to the powers and functions
conferred by the Constitution, Comelec has
“direct and immediate supervision over the provincial, municipal, and city
officials designated by law to perform duties relative to the conduct of
elections.”

The great breadth of the
constitutional and statutory powers granted Comelec
has brought to the fore judicial pronouncements which have long become
guidelines.  Time and again, this Court
has given its imprimatur on the principle that Comelec
is with authority to annul any canvass and proclamation which was illegally
made.^[3] The fact that a candidate proclaimed has
assumed office, we have said, is no bar to the exercise of such power.  It of course may not be availed of where
there has been “a valid proclamation.”^[4] Since private re­spondent’s petition before Comelec is precisely directed at the annul­ment of the
canvass and proclamation, we perceive that inquiry into this issue is within
the area allocated by the Constitution and law to Comelec.  Not that the view expressed herein is without
reason.  We draw from past
experience.  A pattern of conduct
observed in past elections has been the “pernicious
‘grab-the-proclamation-prolong-the?protest’ slogan of some
candidates or parties.”^[5]
Really, were a victim of a proclamation to be precluded from challenging the
validity thereof after that proclamation and the assumption of office thereunder, baneful effects may easily supervene.  It may not be out of place to state that in
the long history of election contests in this country, as observed in Lagumbay vs. Climaco,
supra, a successful contestant in an election protest often wins but
“a mere pyrrhic victory, i.e., a vindication when the term of office is about to
expire or has expired.” Protests, counter-protests, revisions of ballots,
appeals, dilatory tactics, may well frustrate the will of the electorate.  And what if the protestant may not have the
resources and an unwavering determination with which to sustain a long
drawn-out election contest?  In this
context therefore all efforts should be strained – as far as is humanly possible -to
take election returns out of the reach of the unscrupulous; and to prevent
illegal or fraudulent proclamation from ripening into illegal assumption of
office.

But the foregoing are not all. 
In the course of oral arguments before this Court, we observed that in
the minutes of the canvassing at Marawi on November 20, 1967, the following
appear:

“The Treasurer/Secretary then presented all the Advanced
Election Returns to the members of the Board for inspection.  This was done in the presence of
representatives of the Commission on Elections and the Philippine Army.

Then the Municipal Board of Canvassers proceeded and began opening
the election returns consecutively in accordance with the numbers of the
precincts.”^[6]

Advanced copies of election returns cannot be the basis of proclamation.  Proclamation should be based on the copies of
the returns for the municipal treasurer, or if unserviceable, on three other
authentic copies of the returns, namely: 
that for the Comelec (Annex 2 of Comelec’s answer), or for the provincial treasurer, or that
in the ballot box.  Nothing in the same
minutes would show that anyone of those four returns was used.  Nor do the minutes mention the presence of
candidates or their representatives in the canvassing.  A probe into these facts is important.

We have but to reiterate
the oft-cited rule that the validity of a proclamation may be challenged even
after the irregularly proclaimed candidate has assumed office.

2.       We now grapple with
the problem of the alleged nullity of Comelec’s
resolution of April 27, 1968.  It will be recalled that re­spondent Alim Balindong has complained of
the tampering of the return in Precinct 8 before the Court of First Instance
and before Comelec. 
The Comelec copy of the return of Precinct 8
(Annex 2 of Comelec’s answer to the petition before
this Court) gives Comelec a good starting point upon
which to look into the authenticity of the return from said precinct.  Because, so Comelec
alleges, the entries of votes therein for respondent Alim
Balindong are crossed out by heavy pencil marks and
written thereon is the word “eight” and figure “8”.  Comelec also
underscores the fact that this runs counter to the certificate of votes signed
by all the members of the board of inspectors of Precinct 8 where it
appears that Mini Balindong obtained
“thirteen” votes.  Decisive of
the political fortunes of petitioner and respondent Balindong
is the difference of 5 votes.  Heretofore adverted to is that petitioner herein upon the disputed
canvass won by 3 votes.  With
these, the probability that respondent Mira Balindong
is rightfully entitled to proclamation may not easily be shrugged off.  If only for the fact that proclamation should
be made within the limits of accepted notions of justice, and also because a
candidate is not to be turned away upon a proclamation allegedly riddled with
irregularities in various forms that affect its validity, investigation of the
tampering here charged, is proper.  The
power of Comelec to do this is now beyond debate.^[7]
And, we have specifically declared in Cauton vs.
Commission on Elections, 19 Supreme Court Reports Anno. 911, 923, that “in ordering the opening of the ballot
boxes the purpose of the Commission is not to help a particular candidate win
an election but to properly administer and enforce the laws relative to the
conduct of elections.”

We, therefore, rule that
certiorari and prohibition will not lie against the challenged resolution of April 27, 1968.

3. The stress of petitioner’s argument is that respondent Alim Balindong filed his petition
on January 6, 1968, i.e., long after the proclamation of November 20,
1967.  It is petitioner’s trenchant claim
that since the two-week period from proclamation, allowed for protests, had
long elapsed,’ Comelec is without power to entertain
the same – it had no jurisdiction.

Petitioner draws our
attention to the cases of De Leon vs. Imperial, 94
Phil. 680, and Abes vs. Commission
on Elections, L-28348,
December 15, 1967. 
These cases, however, are not to be read as throwing overboard Comelec’s authority to inquire into whether or not a
proclamation is null and void.  For,
these cases merely emphasize the rule that where a proclamation is validly
made, errors in the proclamation may only be raised in a full-dress election
protest.

The ratiocination advanced by petitioner fails to take stock of
the fact that where a proclamation is null and void, that proclamation is no
proclamation at all.  This is
axiomatic.  To be remembered is Mutuc vs. Commission on Elections,
supra, citing Demafiles vs. Commission
on Elections, supra. 
Our ruling there is this: 
“It is indeed true that after proclamation the usual remedy of any
party aggrieved in an election is to be found in an election protest.  But that
is so only on the assumption that there has been a valid proclamation.  Where as in the case at bar the proclamation
itself is illegal, the assumption of office cannot in any way affect the basic
issues.”

And then, Comelec has yet to determine
when respondent Alim Balindong
actually had knowledge of the proclamation of November 20, 1967.

The election law does not
provide for a time limit within which a candidate may challenge the validity of
a proclamation before Comelec.  We are unprepared to say that inaction for an
unreasonable period may not block him. 
Even then, considering the steps taken by respondent, first, in the Court of First Instance, the
second, in the Comelec, the time gap between the
alleged illegal proclamation of November 20, 1967 and the petition before Comelec
of January 6, 1968
does not authorize this Court to say that respondent Alim
Balindong is guilty of laches.

We hold that Balindong’s petition
before Comelec was timely filed; and that Comelec has jurisdiction to inquire into the nullity of the
November 20, 1967 proclamation, and consequently to inquire into the tampering
of the election return in Precinct 8.

FOR THE REASONS GIVEN, the petition for certiorari and prohibition
is hereby denied; and the preliminary injunction heretofore issued is hereby
set aside.

Costs against petitioner.

SO ORDERED.

Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Dizon, Makalintal, Zaldivar, Castro, and
Angeles, JJ., concur.

^[1]
Election Case No. 111-116, Court of First Instance of Lanao del Sur, Branch III-Marawi
City, entitled “Alim Balindong,
Petitioner, vs. Board of Election Inspectors, etc., et al.,
Respondents.”

^[2]
Section 2, Article X of the
Constitution.

^[3] Pacis vs.
Commission on Elections, L-28455, February 10, 1968, citing cases; Pedido vs. Commission on Elections,
L-28539, March 30, 1968, citing cases.

^[4]
Pacis vs. Commission on Elections, supra;
Mutuc vs. Commission on Elections, L-28517,
February 21, 1968, citing Demafiles vs.
Commission on Elections, L-28396, December 29, 1967.

^[5]
Lagumbay vs. Climaco,
L-25444, January 31, 1966.

^[6]
Emphasis supplied.

^[7]
Ong vs. Commission on Elections, L-28415,
January 29, 1968, citing cases.