PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. RUBEN M. TINGCHUY, ACCUSED-APPELLANT.

Tingchuy versus People

The Case

This is the People of the Philippines against Ruben M. Tingchuy, a criminal appeal from a conviction for an election offense. Tingchuy, a candidate for barangay captain, was charged with two violations of the Omnibus Election Code arising from a single incident on barangay election day: one for disorderly conduct inside the polling place, and one for crumpling and tearing the list of voters posted at the door of the precinct. The trial court acquitted him of the first charge but convicted him of the second. The case matters because the Supreme Court uses it to fix the meaning of the election offense of destroying election documents, and to insist that a trial court cannot acquit an accused of disorderly acts and then convict the same accused, for the same incident, on a theory that is itself nothing more than a disorderly act.

Procedural History

Two Informations were filed with the Regional Trial Court of Batangas City, Branch 7, by the Director IV of the Law Department of the Commission on Elections. At arraignment, with the assistance of counsel, Tingchuy pleaded not guilty to both charges. After trial, the Regional Trial Court rendered a Joint Decision acquitting him of the charge of disorderly acts but convicting him of the charge of destroying the list of voters, sentencing him to one year and imposing disqualification to hold public office and deprivation of the right of suffrage, with costs against him. Tingchuy moved for reconsideration, which the trial court denied. He then filed a notice of appeal, which the trial court gave due course, and the case went up to the Supreme Court on appeal.

Facts

On the morning of the barangay elections, at about half past eight, Tingchuy was a candidate for barangay chairman of Banaba West in Batangas City. While voting was going on, he removed the list of voters posted at the door of the clustered precincts at the Banaba West Elementary School and crumpled it. He then went inside the polling place, approached the table of the Board of Election Tellers, and threw the list on the table, saying, this is wrong, this is wrong. A heated altercation followed between him and the poll chairman, and as a result some registered voters of the precinct failed to cast their votes. The incident was recorded in the Minutes of Voting and Counting of Votes.

Tingchuy admitted that he removed one of the two lists of voters posted at the door, but claimed he did so with the conformity of the poll chairman. He denied crumpling the list, insisting that the list he handed over was clean.

The trial court acquitted him of the disorderly conduct charge but convicted him of destroying the list of voters. On appeal, he assigned a single error: that the trial court erred in finding that removing one of the two lists of voters from the door of the precinct is punishable under the Omnibus Election Code provision on destroying election documents.

Issues

• Whether or not the act of removing one of the two lists of voters from the door of the precinct, and handing it to the election officials, constitutes the election offense of destroying, substituting, or taking away an election document.
• Whether or not the trial court may acquit the accused of disorderly acts and yet convict him, for the same incident and the same election day, of destroying the list of voters through crumpling, when destroying is itself a disorderly act.

Applicable Provisions

Section 261, paragraph z, subparagraph 12 of Article XXII of the Omnibus Election Code provides:

Section 261. Prohibited Acts. The following shall be guilty of an election offense: (z) On voting: (12) Any person who, without legal authority, destroys, substitutes or takes away from the possession of those having legal custody thereof, or from the place where they are legally deposited, any election form or document or ballot box which contains official ballots or other documents used in the election.

This is the provision under which Tingchuy was convicted, and the whole appeal turns on whether his acts fall within its words.

Section 261, paragraph bb, subparagraph 4 of the same Article, the disorderly conduct charge of which he was acquitted, provides:

Any person who, in the presence or within the hearing of any board of election inspectors or board of canvassers during any of its meetings, conducts himself in such a disorderly manner as to interrupt or disrupt the work or proceedings to the end of preventing said body from performing its functions, either partly or totally.

The acquittal under this provision is the anchor of the Court's reasoning, because the conviction under the other provision rested on conduct the Court treats as a disorderly act.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court ruled that the appeal is meritorious. The offense is committed by one who, without legal authority, destroys, substitutes, or takes away an election form or document from the possession of those having legal custody, or from the place where it is legally deposited. The Court held that the mere removal of one of two lists of voters from the door does not constitute destruction. The worst that the accused did was remove the list from the door and bring it to the election officials present, and that by itself is not a crime. He did not take the list away from the officials; on the contrary, the election officials themselves testified that he handed it to them while complaining about the mistakes in the list. The Court asked how else he could point out the discrepancies other than by bringing the list to the officials, and noted that the officials could easily have hung the list back on the door had they wished. It was also not proven beyond reasonable doubt that he deliberately destroyed the list. The Court added, in a practical vein, that a list of voters on voting day is expected to be crumpled, even very crumpled, because hundreds of voters look for their names in it, turning its pages while it hangs on the door, amid jostling and rushing to beat the heat and the long lines.

On the second issue, the Court held that the trial court must be consistent in its rulings on the two Informations. It cannot acquit the accused of disorderly acts in the precinct on election day and then convict him, for the same incident and the same election day, of being destructive by crumpling the list, because by any language destroying is a disorderly act. To affirm the conviction would be incompatible, inconsistent, and downright contradictory with the finding of innocence on the disorderly conduct charge. The Court put the statutory text at the center of its ruling:

Any person who, without legal authority, destroys, substitutes or takes away from the possession of those having legal custody thereof, or from the place where they are legally deposited, any election form or document or ballot box which contains official ballots or other documents used in the election.

Since the list was neither destroyed nor taken away within the meaning of those words, and since the acts complained of had already been litigated and resolved in the acquittal, the conviction could not stand.

Doctrine

First, the election offense of destroying election documents requires that the election form or document be destroyed, substituted, or taken away from the possession of those having legal custody, or from the place where it is legally deposited. Mere removal of a list of voters from the door of the precinct, followed by handing it to the election officials to point out errors, is neither destruction nor taking away, and is not a crime.

Second, the element of destruction must be proved beyond reasonable doubt. The natural wear of a list of voters on election day, the crumpling that comes from hundreds of voters scanning it, cannot by itself be charged against a candidate as an election offense.

Third, a trial court must be consistent in its rulings on charges arising from one incident. An accused acquitted of disorderly acts under the disorderly conduct provision cannot be convicted, for the same incident, of destroying the list of voters through crumpling, because destroying is itself a disorderly act, and the conviction would contradict the acquittal.

Disposition

The Supreme Court reversed and set aside the Joint Decision of the Regional Trial Court and acquitted Ruben M. Tingchuy of the charge of violating the election offense of destroying election documents.

Remember This

Memorize this line: removing a list of voters from the door and handing it to the election officials is not destroying, substituting, or taking away an election document. Examiners use this case to test the elements of the election offense of destroying election documents, and to test the rule that a court cannot acquit on one charge and convict on another charge that rests on the very same disorderly act.