BERNARDINO ABES, CARLOS L. ALBERT, ANTONIO C. AMOR, NORBERTO CONDEZ, BENJAMIN GRECIA, LUISA G. ORENDAIN, JOSE ABRENICA, ROSARIO L. PLANAS, PROCESO SEBASTIAN, VIDAL A. TAN, LOREN…

Abes versus Commission on Elections

The Case

This is Abes versus Commission on Elections, a special civil action for certiorari with a prayer for preliminary injunction, decided by the Supreme Court in December 1967. The petitioners were candidates of the Liberal Party, the Nacionalista Reform Party, and the Quezon City Citizens League for Good Government in the November 1967 elections. They asked the Supreme Court to reverse the Commission on Elections and to compel it to suspend the canvass, annul the elections in Quezon City, and call a new election. The case matters because it draws the outer boundary of the Commission's power: the Commission may supervise and administer elections, but it cannot annul an election or order a new one. That power belongs elsewhere, and where no law grants a remedy, the remedy lies with Congress, not with the courts.

Procedural History

The petitioners first went to the Commission on Elections. They claimed that more than half of the registered voters were unable to vote in the elections of November 14, 1967, and prayed that the Commission declare a failure of election, suspend the canvass and the proclamation of winning candidates, nullify the elections for city officials, and order new elections. In a minute resolution of November 23, 1967, the Commission denied the petition. It ordered the board of canvassers to proceed with the canvass but not to proclaim any winning candidate for city offices, and it gave the petitioners time to go to the Supreme Court for the proper remedy.

The petitioners then came to the Supreme Court on certiorari with a prayer for preliminary injunction. Upon the petition and the returns of the respondents, the Court heard the case on the merits and decided it in a single opinion.

Facts

The petitioners listed a long series of irregularities said to have attended the elections. Among them: blank official registration forms were taken from the office of the Quezon City registrar several weeks before election day; Nacionalista leaders campaigned within the polling places; voters were allowed to vote on mere mimeographed notices of certain candidates; voters were compelled to fill their ballots on open tables, and in many precincts outside the polling places; forms of petition for inclusion proceedings were obtainable only in the offices of Nacionalista candidates; thousands of voters were allowed to vote on inclusion orders issued indiscriminately by two city judges on election day; thousands of voters sympathetic to Nacionalista candidates were allowed to vote beyond the hours fixed by law; identification cards of voters sympathetic to non-Nacionalista candidates were scattered in the office of a Nacionalista candidate for mayor; and most of the precinct books of voters were not sealed within the deadline fixed by law.

From these allegations the petitioners drew the conclusion that about fifty one percent of the registered voters had been disenfranchised. The respondents contested this. In their answer, they averred that out of 162,457 registered voters in Quezon City, 100,382 actually cast their votes, or about sixty two percent.

The petitioners' central theory was that this combination of terrorism, fraud, and other illegal practices amounted to a failure of election, warranting annulment and a new election. The Commission declined to grant that relief, and the petitioners asked the Supreme Court to compel it.

Issues

• Whether or not the Commission on Elections has jurisdiction to order the board of canvassers to suspend the canvassing and proclamation of the winning candidates.
• Whether or not the Commission on Elections has jurisdiction to annul the elections in Quezon City on the ground of terrorism, fraud, and other illegal practices.
• Whether or not the Commission on Elections has jurisdiction, following such annulment, to direct the holding of another election.

Applicable Provisions

Section 2 of Article X of the Constitution, the primary grant of power to the Commission, provides:

Section 2. The Commission on Elections 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. It shall decide, save those involving the right to vote, all administrative questions, affecting elections, including the determination of the number and location of polling places, and the appointment of election inspectors and of other election officials. All law enforcement agencies and instrumentalities of the Government, when so required by the Commission, shall act as its deputies for the purpose of insuring free, orderly, and honest elections. The decisions, orders, and rulings of the Commission shall be subject to review by the Supreme Court.

This is the measure of the Commission's authority, and the Court reads nothing in it that implies a power to annul an election.

Section 8 of the Revised Election Code provides:

Section 8. Postponement of Election. When for any serious cause the holding of an election should become impossible in any political division or subdivision, the President, upon recommendation of the Commission on Elections, shall postpone the election therein for such time as he may deem necessary.

This provision speaks only of postponement before elections, and it is not a remedy after elections.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that canvassing and proclamation must proceed. The board of canvassers is a ministerial body, bound by law to canvass all votes on the returns submitted to it in due form, its powers limited to the mechanical or mathematical function of ascertaining and declaring the apparent result. The Commission may annul a canvass or proclamation based on incomplete, incorrect, or tampered returns, or one made in an unauthorized meeting of the board. But neither Constitution nor statute has granted the Commission or the board the power, in the canvass of election returns, to look beyond the face thereof once satisfied of their authenticity. Nothing in the petition indicated that the returns were falsified or not genuine. To suspend the canvass would stop the Commission from performing its constitutional duty and the board from its legal obligation, and worse, might leave a vacuum in the offices of Quezon City elective officials after the incumbents' term ended on December 31, 1967.

On the second issue, the Court held that the Commission has no power to annul an election. The Constitution confers none, and the Revised Election Code withholds it. The Court quoted its earlier ruling in Nacionalista Party versus Commission on Elections:

It seems clear from the context of the constitutional provision in question as well as from other provisions already quoted above that such power is preventive only and not curative also; that is to say, it is intended to prevent any and all forms of election fraud or violation of the Election Law, but if it fails to accomplish that purpose, it is not the Commission on Elections that is charged with the duty to cure or remedy the resulting evil but some other agencies of the Government.

The petitioners were not without remedy. The question of terrorism, vote buying, and other irregularities should be ventilated in a regular election protest filed before the Court of First Instance within two weeks after proclamation, and not in a petition to enjoin the board of canvassers. The claim of failure of election, the Court added, rested on bare assertions, and was in any event a matter for an election protest.

On the third issue, the Court held that the Commission cannot direct a new election. It searched in vain for any constitutional or legal precept granting that power. Section 8 of the Revised Election Code refers to postponement before elections, not to a remedy after elections. As the Court had recently held, the remedy for a hiatus in the election law lies in Congress; it may be filled only by legislation, not by judicial fiat.

The Court found no lack or excess of jurisdiction and no grave abuse of discretion in the Commission's resolution. The Commission correctly declined to suspend the canvass, and since it had no legal duty to do what the petitioners asked, mandamus would not issue.

Doctrine

A Bar candidate should retain these rules. First, the board of canvassers is a ministerial body; it performs a mechanical or mathematical function of adding the votes shown on the face of the returns and declaring the result, and it does not pass upon the validity of the ballots. Second, the Commission on Elections may annul a canvass or proclamation based on incomplete, incorrect, or tampered returns, or one made without a quorum or without a meeting, but it cannot look beyond the face of returns once satisfied of their authenticity. Third, the Commission's power under Section 2 of Article X of the Constitution is preventive, not curative; it cannot annul an election for terrorism, fraud, and other illegal practices. Fourth, the proper remedy is a regular election protest before the Court of First Instance, filed within two weeks after proclamation. Fifth, the Commission cannot order a new election; Section 8 of the Revised Election Code allows only postponement before elections, and any gap in the law must be filled by Congress, not by judicial fiat.

Disposition

The Supreme Court dismissed the petition, with no costs allowed, thereby sustaining the Commission on Elections and allowing the canvass to proceed.

Remember This

Memorize the line: the Commission on Elections' power is preventive, not curative, so it cannot annul an election or order a new one. Examiners use this case to test the limits of the Commission's jurisdiction and to ask where an election protest for terrorism and fraud must be filed.