BENJAMIN T. LIGOT, PETITIONER, VS. COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS, PROVINCIAL BOARD OF CANVASSERS OF CAGAYAN AND DAVID PUZON, RESPONDENTS.

After considering the petition for certiorari and prohibition
and the answer thereto, as well as the arguments adduced by the parties at the
hearing on January 13, 1970 and in their respective memoranda, and it appearing
–

1.     
That on November 13, 1969 the
petitioner Benjamin T. Ligot, Nacionalista
Party independent candidate for the second congressional district of the
province of Cagayan in the elections held on November
11, 1969, filed a petition with the Commission on Elections (hereafter called
COMELEC) for the annulment of all the election returns from the four
municipalities of Ballesteros, Allacapan,
Abuyog and Pamplona, all of that province, upon the
principal allegation that armed men, employed by the respondent David Puzon, official candidate of the Nacionalista
Party, dictated at gunpoint to the boards of inspectors of the said
municipalities the contents of the said election returns without the benefit of
actual tally and count of the ballots cast, in order to give the respondent Puzon plurality over him;

2.     
That although in his fifth
supplemental petition dated November 28, 1969 the petitioner asked the COMELEC
“to receive evidence and conduct [an] investigation to determine and
decide the factuality of petitioner’s allegations of force, falsity and/or
fraud vitiating [the] returns from the aforementioned four towns,” he
agreed on the same day to have the matter heard and decided on affidavits and
counter-affidavits and after submission by the parties of their respective
memoranda to the COMELEC;

3.     
That in accordance with this
agreed procedure the COMELEC required the submission of affidavits and gave the
peti­tioner opportunity to present rebuttal affidavits, after which it issued
its questioned resolution, dated December 19, 1969, dismissing Ligot’s petition and directing the provincial board of can­vassers
to proceed with the proclamation of the presumptive winner on the basis of the
returns from all the municipalities of the second district of Cagayan, including the four municipalities men­tioned in
the petition for annulment, the COMELEC having found the election returns from
these four municipalities to be regular and genuine, contrary to the
petitioner’s allegations;

4.     
That by agreeing to have the
matter heard and decided on affidavits, counter-affidavits and rebuttal
affidavits, the peti­tioner in effect waived his right, if any, to examine the
affiants, with the result that his subsequent demand of December 2, 1969 that
the COMELEC “summon all the election inspectors and poll clerks,
interrogate them and let the parties cross-examine them” was unavailing;

5.     
That petitioner Ligot’s claim that he could not secure rebuttal affidavits
as his prospective witnesses were under threat of reprisal by respondent Puzon’s armed partisans but that these witnesses were
willing to testify before the COMELEC, was duly considered and thereafter
rejected by that body;

6.     
That aside from making a general
allegation, the peti­tioner has not shown that in hearing and deciding the
matter on affidavits alone, without requiring the oral testimony of witnesses,
the COMELEC committed such a capricious and whimsical exercise of discretion as
to amount to lack of jurisdiction or to grave abuse of discretion;

7.     
That in the performance of its
constitutional duty of insuring free, orderly and honest elections the COMELEC
possesses a wide latitude of discretion which, unless shown to have been exer­cised
in an arbitrary or improvident manner, will not be interfered with by this
Court;

1.     
That the petitioner’s allegations
of fraud, terrorism and vote-buying in the elections held in the second district
of Cagayan on November 11, 1969 are normally proper grounds for an
election protest and not for an action to annul election returns;

The Court Resolved to dismiss the petition and to lift the
restraining order issued on December
22, 1969. The Commission on Elections and the provincial board of
canvassers of the province of Cagayan may therefore
forthwith proceed accordingly.

This Resolution shall be executory upon
promulgation.

No pronouncement as to costs.

Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Dizon, Makalintal, Sanchez, Teehankee, and Barredo, JJ., concur.

Zaldivar, Ruiz Castro, and Fernando, JJ., reserve their votes.