NICOLAS Y. FELICIANO, ET AL., PETITIONERS, VS. ARSENIO LUGAY, ET AL., RESPONDENTS.

In
November, 1951, the herein respondent Arsenio Lugay filed with the
Commission on Elections a petition for the annulment of the lists of
voters for the municipality of Concepcion, Tarlac, after said lists had
been revised on November 1, 1951, substantially on the ground that the
regulations were held under wholesale fraud, intimidation and
terrorism. For lack of material time to dispose of the case before the
election day, the Commission issued on November 8, 1951, an order
suspending the hearing of the case, but requiring the herein
petitioners to answer not later than November 12, 1951. Upon
requirement of the Commission, the respondent filed a bill of
particulars on April 28, 1953. In the course of the proceedings, the
preliminary question that arose was whether the Commission, as pointed
out in its resolution of April 4, 1952, “has jurisdiction to annul at
this time any registry list of voters which has already been used in
the last elections of November 13, 1951, in view of the provisions of
Section 95 of the Revised Election Code as amended by Republic Act No.
599 that the list of voters prepared in the election of 1951 shall
constitute the permanent list of voters until its renewal in 1963.”

In a resolution signed by Commissioners Leopoldo Rovira and Rodrigo D.
Perez and promulgated on June 3, 1953, the following pronouncement was
made: “In view of the foregoing, we hold that this Commission has the
power to annul fraudulent registry lists of voters notwithstanding the
fact that they have been used in an election and therefore, hereby
order the Secretary of the Commission to furnish the petitioner and
respondent copies of this resolution and to summon them to appear
before this Commission on June 8, 1953 at 10 o’clock in the morning in
the Office of this Commission, the petitioner to present whatever
evidence he may have in support of his claims in the Bill of
Particulars and the oppositor to present his side of the case.”
Commissioner Domingo Imperial prepared a dissenting opinion in which he
expressed the following view: “The petition in this case was filed on
November 7, 1951, or four days after the present and existing list of
voters had become permanent and unrenewable until the expiration of the
period of twelve years, or in 1963. The petition, therefore, was filed
too late, when the Commission on Elections had already lost the power
and jurisdiction to order the total annulment of the registration in
the municipality of Concepcion, Tarlac, unless, of course, the
Commission on Elections contravenes the express provision of law in
section 95 of the Revised Election Code, which action cannot be done
without at the same time contravening the constitutional mandate that
the Commission on Elections ‘shall enforce and administer all laws
relative to the conduct of elections.'”

The present petition
for certiorari was instituted by the petitioners in this court, to set
aside the resolution of the Commission on Elections of June 3, 1953. It
is contended that, admitting the facts on which the petition for
annulment of the lists of voters are premised, the Commission has no
jurisdiction to annul said lists which had already become permanent,
subject only to corrections by proper petitions for exclusion; that
section 5 of the Revised Election Code, providing that any controversy
submitted to the Commission on Elections shall be tried, heard and
decided by it within fifteen days, is mandatory.

That the
Commission on Elections is authorized to annul illegal registry lists
of voters has in effect already been decided by this Court in Remigio
Prudente, et al. vs. Angel Genuino, et al., G. R. No. L-5222,
Resolution of November 6, 1951. Upon the other hand, the contention
that the disputed lists had become permanent is of no moment, because
we find that, assuming said lists to have become permanent on November
3, 1951, (according to the very dissenting opinion of Chairman
Imperial), the petitioners filed with the Commission as early as
November 2, 1951, a petition in the form of a letter, praying for the
annulment of the lists in question. Although upon order of the
Commission the respondents filed the petition in proper form only on
November 7, 1951, we are inclined to rule that, for the purpose of
giving effect to the constitutional powers of the Commission, the
petition presented on November 2, was sufficient.

There is
also no merit in the argument that the failures of the Commission to
dispose of the proceeding for annulment within fifteen days, as
required in section 5 of the Revised Election Code, has resulted in the
loss of its jurisdiction, inasmuch as said provision must be considered
merely directory, in the same way that similar provisions for the
disposition of election contests (section 177 and 178 of the Revised
Election Code) were held directory. (Querubin vs. Court of Appeals, et al.,^[1] 46 Off. Gaz., 1954, followed in Cachola vs. Cordero,^[2],
G. R. No. L-5780, February 28, 1953.) More or less the same
considerations control as regards the jurisdiction of the courts over
election contests and the authority of the Commission on Elections over
matters placed under it by the Constitution.

The petition
will therefore be as it is hereby dismissed with costs against the
petitioners and in favor of the respondent Lugay. So ordered.

Pablo, Bengzon, Padilla, Tuazon, Montemayor, Reyes, Bautista Angelo and Labrador, JJ., concur.

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^[1] 82 Phil. 227.

^[2] 92 Phil. 744.