MOISES SAN JUAN, CONTESTANT AND APPELLANT, VS. MIGUEL R. CORNEJO, ARTEMIO REYES AND RAMON COMAGON, CONTESTEES. MIGUEL R. CORNEJO, APPELLEE.

This is an appeal from a decision of Judge Buenaventura Reyes,
presiding in the Court of First Instance of the Province of Rizal,
wherein Miguel R. Cornejo, candidate elect to the office of municipal
president of Pasay, was declared to have been rightfully elected to
said office, as a consequence whereof the contest instituted by the
appellant, Moises San Juan, was dismissed, with costs and incidental
expenses against said contestant.

In the general election held on June 5, 1928, there were four
candidates for the office of municipal president of Pasay, in the
Province of Rizal, namely, Miguel R. Cornejo, Moises San Juan, Artemio
Reyes and Ramon M. Comagon. According to the returns, as the result
wias officially proclaimed, Cornejo received 1,060 votes, Moises San
Juan 1,028, Artemio Reyes 815, and Ramon M. Comagon 800. In party
affiliation the two leading candidates were irregular, Cornejo
belonging to the faction known as Reformist Democrat, and San Juan
pertaining to the Independent Nationalist; while the official
Democratic and official Nationalist candidates occupied the third and
fourth places respectively in the returns. The present contest was
instituted in due form by San Juan, and in so far as the result of this
proceeding is concerned, Reyes and Comagon may be ignored, since the
controversy involves only the two leading candidates.

It appears that the municipality of Pasay comprised, in this
election, fourteen electoral precincts; but in the first thirteen of
these precincts no irregularities of importance came to light in the
course of the contest, though in these precincts San Juan was declared
entitled to 14 more votes and the appellee, Cornejo, to 10 more than
the inspectors had given them respectively. The contest, then, centers
upon precinct 14, in which, according to the election returns, Cornejo
received 124 and San Juan 21 votes. Upon the recount, incident to this
contest, it was discovered that, among the ballots bearing the name of
Cornejo, as candidate for municipal president, 92 were written upon
unofficial, or counterfeit, ballots; and if the votes apparently
represented by these unofficial ballots are deducted from Cornejo’s
plurality in this precinct, the general result will be changed and San
Juan will be declared elected.

As was observed by the trial judge, there is no doubt that the
questioned ballots are unofficial, since the paper on which they are
printed is of lighter color than the official ballots, and the
questioned ballots are a millimeter broader than the official ballots.
Moreover, the words terminating many of the lines of printed matter in
the questioned ballots are different from the words ending the similar
lines in the official ballots. Other circumstances contribute to make
this conclusion certain, and indeed there is no controversy over the
fact that the questioned ballots are false. The only question is as to
whether the contestee, Cornejo, is responsible for the use of these
ballots and whether they are the veridical ballots used by the voters
on the election day. Upon this point the trial judge came to the
conclusion that the false ballots had been surreptitiously introduced
into the box of used ballots and substituted for an equal, or
approximately equal, number of genuine ballots which were at the same
time taken from the box. In view of this finding his Honor held that
the box had been violated after the official count of the votes had
been made, and that it was therefore necessary for the court to adhere
to the official returns from this precinct, by which Cornejo was
conceded 124 votes and San Juan 21.

The record furnishes no material upon which this finding of the
trial judge can be properly reversed. On the contrary, we find every
reason for believing that the conclusion reached by the trial court was
correct. The dominating circumstance leading to the conclusion at which
the trial judge arrived is that the numbered stubs, or detachable
strips, taken from the ballots which were voted were found undisturbed
in the box of spoiled ballots; and all of these stubs had evidently
been detached from official ballots, having been found to be of the
same sort of paper as the official ballots and of the same breadth.
This circumstance is, to our mind conclusive that official ballots, to
the number of the stubs found in the box of spoiled ballots, were
actually used by the voters on election day. This indicates, beyond a
reasonable doubt, that the counterfeit ballots bearing the name of the
contestee as candidate for the office of municipal president were
introduced into the box of used ballots after the official count had
been accomplished.

It is true that, as the trial judge observed, the proof before the
court supplied no means for determining just when and how the
substitution of the ballots was accomplished, but fraud prefers, as far
as possible, to work in the dark, and when the fact of the substitution
is proved, it is not necessary for the party injuriously affected
thereby to show the exact manner in which the deed was done. It is of
course a somewhat novel manifestation of ingenuity for an intending
contestant, or his followers, to lay a ground for contest in this
subtle way, namely, by substituting in the box of used ballots a number
of counterfeit ballots bearing the name of the successful candidate,
with a view to the planting of a contest based upon the invalidity of
those very ballots; but, as experience has shown, it is impossible to
exhaust the resources of fraud, and we have no hesitancy in declaring
that the findings of the trial judge are supported by the evidence.

The judgment appealed from will therefore be affirmed, and it is so ordered, with costs against the appellant.

Avancena, C. J., Johnson, Johns, Romiialdez, and Villa- Real, JJ., concur.