AURELIANO ROSANES, PROTESTANT AND APPELLANT, VS. AMADO PEJI, PROTESTEE AND APPELLEE.

Aureliano Rosanes contests Amado Peji’s election as president of the municipality of Alfonso of the Province of Cavite.

The court below rendered judgment dismissing the contest, and the
protestant now appeals to this court alleging that the dismissal of his
action was erroneous, because, according to him, the election in
precinct No. 5 of the municipality of Alfonso should be annulled in
view of the numerous frauds and irregularities therein committed by the
leaders and followers of the protestee; wherefore, he, the protestant,
should be declared the president elect of said municipality, and the
lower court should not have given credit to the testimony of the
witnesses for the protestee, it being incoherent, contradictory and
biased.

The frauds and irregularities alleged in the protest are made to
consist mainly of changes in ballots, threats, pressure upon voters and
failure to deposit the election returns within the proper ballot box.

The only change proven is that of A-91 and A-92, which was
satisfactorily explained at the trial of this case: it was an error on
the part of the secretary of the election. who gave to one voter the
ballot that should have been given to another and vice versa.

The evidence of record is such that it cannot, in justice, be
concluded that there were the threats and violation of law alleged in
the protest, as perpetrated in that precinct during the voting. Of the
only two persons mentioned by the witnesses for the protestant as
having intruded in said precinct on ;the occasion of record, one,
Esteban Boocan, does not know how to write, and could not therefore
have filled out the voters’ ballots, and the other is Antonio Talen,
hardly mentioned on cross-examination, as the trial judge rightly
observes, whose correct considerations, which we adopt, are as follows:

“If those violators of the law had been named,
perhaps they might have been made to appear and write in order to see
whether or not some of the ballots contained in the ballot box
pertaining to precinct No. 5 had been filled in by them. And if it were
true that that violation of the law was brazen and scandalous, constant
and continuous during the whole of the day of voting, it is unlikely
the democrats could have kept their patience in a place where popular
suffrage was being made a mockery of, without any of the democratic
watchers ,there, or any other democrat having gone to town, or to any
other place in order to call for help from the proper authorities. The
court believes that there is much exaggeration in the evidence
presented by the protestant on this particular.

“One witness
for the protestant testifies, or at least gives us to understand, that
there were several individuals armed with bolos. But another witness
assures us that there was only one with a bolo, and that one was Esteban Boocan,
One of the witnesses for the protestant testifies that there were from
five to ten individuals armed who remained within the precinct. But
another witness for the protestant assures us that there were no more
than five. This shows the tendency of the former to exaggerate the
facts.”

To our mind, the preponderance of the evidence militates in favor of
the fact that inspector Benito Leonor signed the election returns
Exhibit 1, which was not deposited in the proper ballot box because it
was believed that such a thing should not be done in view of the fact
that it was not drawn up on a proper form and because only one copy was
prepared instead of three.

As to the credibility of the witnesses, after considering the
testimony of all for both sides, we find the evidence in support of the
protest, as we have already intimated, insufficient.

The second error assigned is a consequence of the rest.

When, as in the instant case, the person elected obtained a
considerable plurality of votes over his adversary, and the evidence
offered to rebut such a result is neither solid nor decisive, not only
according to our opinion in view of the record, but also in the
judgment of the trial judge, who saw and heard the witnesses testify,
it would be imprudent to annul the election as that would be contrary
to the popular will solemnly expressed in the suffrage.

The appealed judgment is affirmed, with costs against the appellant. So ordered.

Johnson, Street, Malcolm, Ostrand, Johns, and Villa-Real, JJ., concur.