GOVERNOR HADJI ARSAD SALI, PETITIONER AND APPELLEE, VS. BENJAMIN ABUBAKAR, ET AL., RESPONDENT AND APPELLANT.

Sali versus Abubakar

The Case

This is an appeal by Benjamin Abubakar from an order of the Court of First Instance of Sulu that permanently enjoined the agents of the National Bureau of Investigation from further examining the contested ballots in an election protest and declared the entire expert examination null and void. The protestee, Governor Hadji Arsad Sali, brought the action to stop the examination; the protestant, Abubakar, defended it. The case matters because it draws a clean line between two different questions that are easily confused: whether a public official had administrative authority to act, and whether the evidence he gathered is admissible and valid in court. The Supreme Court separates them, and that separation is the whole lesson of the case.

Procedural History

Abubakar filed an election protest against Sali over the office of Provincial Governor of Sulu. In the course of the revision of the ballots, the Court of First Instance of Sulu, on Abubakar's motion, issued an order on September 4, 1964 authorizing him to avail himself of the services of handwriting and thumbmark experts, who could examine the questioned ballots subject to the supervision of the court. Acting on that order, Abubakar engaged handwriting and fingerprint experts of the National Bureau of Investigation, who examined the ballots under the supervision of the Clerk and Deputy Clerk of Court.

In October 1964, Sali filed a separate action against Abubakar, the National Bureau of Investigation officers, and the Clerk and Deputy Clerk of Court, to prevent further examination and to have it declared null and void. The case was submitted for decision without any evidence. The lower court issued an order dated January 20, 1965, holding that the agents had no legal authority to conduct the examination, ordering all respondents to desist, making the writ of preliminary injunction permanent, and declaring the entire expert examination null and void. Abubakar appealed directly to the Supreme Court.

Facts

An election protest over the governorship of Sulu was pending before the Court of First Instance. Abubakar, the protestant, moved for authority to engage handwriting and thumbmark experts, claiming that the contested ballots were written by few hands or thumbmarked by one or a few persons. If true, those acts would constitute offenses punishable under the law.

The court granted the motion on September 4, 1964, allowing the experts to examine all the questioned ballots subject to the court's supervision. Abubakar then engaged experts of the National Bureau of Investigation, who examined the ballots under the supervision of the Clerk and Deputy Clerk of Court.

Sali responded not by objecting within the protest but by filing a separate action to stop the examination and annul it. The lower court agreed with him, ruling that the law creating the National Bureau of Investigation authorizes it only to give technical aid to prosecuting and law enforcement officers and entities of the Government and to courts that may request its services, not to private litigants. It also noted that the September 4 order did not explicitly name the National Bureau of Investigation. On that basis it permanently enjoined the examination and declared it void, prompting Abubakar's appeal.

Issues

• Whether or not the examination of contested ballots by National Bureau of Investigation experts, at the request of a private litigant rather than a public officer or agency, is null and void.
• Whether or not the question of whether a public official may be permitted to examine documents and testify thereon is an administrative matter to be resolved by his superior officer, independent of the validity of the examination and the weight of the testimony.

Applicable Provisions

Section 1 of Republic Act No. 157, creating the National Bureau of Investigation, provides in its subdivision (d):

To give technical aid to all prosecuting and law enforcement officers and entities of the Government, as well as to the courts that may request its services.

This is the provision the lower court read as limiting the Bureau's aid to government officers and courts, and it frames the question of authority the Court declines to resolve.

Subdivision (b) of Section 1 of the same law provides that the Bureau may:

Render assistance, whenever properly requested in the investigation or detection of crimes or other offenses.

The Court cites this to show that the examination had a legitimate law enforcement dimension, since the alleged writing by few hands or thumbmarking by one or a few persons would itself constitute punishable offenses.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court reversed. It found it unnecessary to decide whether the National Bureau of Investigation may extend technical aid to parties other than law enforcement officers and entities of the Government, including courts. Even assuming the answer were negative, the Court held that such a premise would not justify the conclusion reached below. The fact that an expert examines contested documents at the request of a private litigant rather than a public officer does not necessarily nullify the examination. Its purpose is presumably to assist the court in settling the issue correctly. Even a non-expert private individual may examine the same documents if he has facts that may help the court, and such an examination does not become null and void merely because the examiner is an expert or an officer of the Bureau.

On the second issue, the Court held that any person, expert or not, in his private or official capacity, may testify on matters within his personal knowledge that are relevant to a suit, subject to the court's authority to determine the credibility and weight of the testimony. Whether a public official may or shall be ordered or permitted by his superior to examine documents and testify is mainly administrative, within the competence of the superior officer, the Bureau Director, or the department head. That question is independent of the validity of the examination and of the credence and weight the court gives to the conclusions reached. Relief against irregularities in that regard should be sought from the corresponding superior officer or administrative organ, not by annulling the evidence.

Doctrine

First, the validity of an expert examination of evidence is not destroyed by the fact that the examiner is a public official acting at the request of a private litigant. Any person, expert or not, may examine documents and testify on matters within his personal knowledge, subject to the court's control over credibility and weight.

Second, the authority of a public official to undertake an examination at the direction of his superior is an administrative question, separate from the validity of the examination and the admissibility of the resulting testimony. Irregularity in that authority is corrected through administrative channels, not by declaring the evidence void.

Third, the purpose of such examination is to assist the court in correctly settling the issue before it, and that purpose is served regardless of who requested the expert's services.

Disposition

The Supreme Court reversed the order appealed from and dismissed the complaint, with costs against Governor Hadji Arsad Sali.

Remember This

Memorize the line: an administrative irregularity in how a public expert came to examine evidence does not nullify the examination or the testimony. Examiners use this case to test the distinction between administrative authority and the admissibility and weight of evidence, especially in election protests involving expert examination of ballots.