G.R. No. 95336. July 12, 1991
JUAN GARCIA RIVERA, PETITIONER, VS. COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS AND JUAN MITRE GARCIA II, RESPONDENTS.
PADILLA, J.:
Petitioner Juan Garcia Rivera and private respondent Juan Mitre Garcia II were candidates for the position of Mayor
of Guinobatan, Albay,
during the local elections in January 1988.
The Municipal Board of Canvassers proclaimed Rivera as the duly elected
Mayor by a majority of ten (10) votes.
On 26 January 1988,
Garcia filed an election protest with the Regional Trial Court, Legazpi City,
docketed as Case No. 01-88. After due
hearing, and upon considering the report of a Revision Committee it had earlier
created, the trial court rendered its verdict on 9 September 1989, finding
Garcia to have obtained 6,376 votes as against Rivera’s 6,222.
Rivera appealed to the COMELEC.
Through its First Division, the COMELEC sustained with modification the
appealed judgment of the Regional Trial Court, as follows:
“1. Affirming the Trial
court’s annulment of the Board of Canvasser’s proclamation of Protestee-Appellant Juan G. Rivera as the duly elected
Municipal Mayor,
2. Declaring Protestant-Appellee
Juan Mitre Garcia II as the duly elected Municipal
Mayor of Guinobatan, Albay,
by a majority of ONE HUNDRED FIFTY THREE (153) votes over Protestee-Appellant
Juan G. Rivera instead of a plurality of ONE HUNDRED FIFTY FOUR (154) votes;
and
3. Protestee-Appellant
Juan Garcia Rivera is hereby directed to turn over the Office of the Municipal
Mayor to Protestant-Appellee Juan Mitre
Garcia II.
x x
x x
x x x x x“
Rivera’s motion for reconsideration was acted upon by the COMELEC
en banc. In its per curiam
decision, dated 6 September 1990,
the COMELEC denied the motion and re-affirmed the decision of its First
Division declaring Garcia as the duly elected Mayor of Guinobatan,
Albay but with a winning margin of one hundred
twenty-three (123) votes over Rivera.
Garcia commenced to discharge the duties and functions of Mayor
of Guinobatan on 10 October 1990, by virtue of a writ of execution
implementing the COMELEC decision of 6
September 1990. He continued
as mayor until 10 November 1990
when he was served notice of this Court’s temporary restraining order, issued
upon Rivera’s motion.
Rivera filed the present petition on 5 October 1990 seeking annulment of the COMELEC en banc decision rendered in favor
of respondent Garcia. He also prayed for
the issuance of an order restraining the implementation of the said judgment,
arguing that the same had not yet become final and executory
as of the time this petition was filed.
He cites Article IX-C, Section 2, Par. (2) of
the 1987 Constitution, in relation to Part VII, Rule 39, Section 1 of the COMELEC Rules of Procedure. He also contends that since the COMELEC decision of 6 September 1990 has not yet become
final and executory, the COMELEC has no authority to
issue the assailed order and writ of execution.
Petitioner maintains further that he has a period of thirty (30) days
from 6 September 1990 or
until 6 October 1990 within
which to elevate the COMELEC
decision, on certiorari, to this Court, pursuant to Section 1, Rule 39
of the COMELEC Rules of
Procedure. He submits that the
questioned COMELEC decision is not one that became final and executory unless restrained by this Court as provided under
Section 3, Rule 39 of the COMELEC Rules, as said rule applies only to
“decisions in pre-proclamation cases and petitions to deny due course or
to disqualify a candidate, and postpone or suspend elections.”
Lastly, according to petitioner, Section 13(a) of Rule 18 (finality of Comelec
decisions or resolutions) and Section 1 of Rule 39 (review by the Supreme Court
of Comelec decisions, orders and rulings) of the
COMELEC Rules of Procedure, should be read in the context of Section 7, Article
IX-A of the Constitution (Supreme Court authority to review on certiorari
a Comelec decision, order or ruling).
Upon the other hand, respondent Garcia contends that:
1. The Constitution declares the decisions of the COMELEC on election
contests involving elective municipal and barangay
officials to be final, executory and not appealable (Article IX-C, Sec. 2, par. (2),
second sentence, 1987 Constitution).
2. In an earlier petition for certiorari filed by Rivera
with this Court, docketed as G.R. No. 87046, charging the Regional Trial Court
of grave abuse of discretion in Case No. 01-88, wherein the same issue now
raised in this petition was raised by Rivera, this Court dismissed the petition
for lack of merit on 7 March 1989.
3. The supplemental ground raised by petitioner Rivera that the
COMELEC committed grave abuse of discretion “by not excluding from the
total votes of Garcia at least ten (10) votes which were misappreciated
in Garcia’s favor, outside of those objected votes already ruled upon by the
COMELEC” does not deserve any consideration. If true, it is an error in judgment,
correctible by appeal, not by a petition for certiorari pursuant to Rule
65, Sec. 1, of the Rules of Court.
The environmental facts of this petition are similar to those in
the Galido case (G.R. No. 95346, decided 18
January 1991). The issue of whether the
decisions of the COMELEC in election contests involving elective municipal and barangay officials, being final and executory
and not appealable, preclude the filing of a special
civil action of certiorari, was decided in the said Galido
case. The Court held:
“Under Article IX (A), Section 7 of the Constitution, which
petitioner cites in support of this petition, it is stated: ‘(U)nless
otherwise provided by the Constitution or by law, any decision, order, or
ruling of each (Constitutional) Commission may be brought to the Supreme Court
on certiorari by the aggrieved party within thirty days from receipt of
a copy thereof.’
On the other hand, private respondent relies on Article IX, (C),
Section 2 (2), paragraph 2 of the Constitution which
provides that decisions, final orders, or rulings of the Commission on
Elections in contests involving elective municipal and barangay
offices shall be final, executory and not
appealable.
(Emphasis supplied)
We resolve this issue in favor of the petitioner. The fact that decisions, final orders or
rulings of the Commission on Elections in contests involving elective municipal
and barangay offices are final, executory
and not appealable, does not preclude a recourse to this Court by way of a special civil action of
certiorari. The proceedings in
the Constitutional Commission on this matter are enlightening. Thus –
‘MR. FOZ. So, the amendment is to delete the word “inappealable.”
MR.
REGALADO. Before that, on page 26, line
26, we should have a transposition because decisions are always orders. So, it should read: “However, decisions,
final orders or rulings,” to distinguish them from interlocutory orders,
“… of the Commission on Elections on municipal and barangay
officials shall be final and IMMEDIATELY executory.”
That would be my
proposed amendment.
MR. FOZ.
Accepted, Mr. Presiding Officer.
MR. REGALADO.
It is understood, however, that while these decisions with
respect to barangay and municipal officials are final
and immediately executory and, therefore, not appealable, that does not rule out the possibility of an
original special civil action for certiorari,
prohibition, or mandamus, as the case
may be, under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court.
MR. FOZ.
That is understood, Mr. Presiding Officer.
MR. REGALADO. At least it is on record.
Thank you, Mr.
Presiding Officer.’”
Earlier, the Court had occasion to resolve the same issue in the
case of Flores vs. COMELEC (G.R. No. 89604, 20 April 1990) where
the Court stated:
“Obviously, the provision of Article IX-C, Section 2(2) of the
Constitution that ‘decisions, final orders, or rulings of the Commission on
election contests involving elective municipal and barangay
offices shall be final, executory, and not appealable’ applies only to questions of fact and not of
law. That provision was not intended to
divest the Supreme Court of its authority to resolve questions of law as
inherent in the judicial power conferred upon it by the Constitution. We eschew a literal reading of that provision
that would contradict such authority.”
Actually, the main thrust of the present petition for certiorari
is that the respondent COMELEC en banc committed grave abuse of discretion when it affirmed the
decision of its First Division, promulgated on 2 May 1990, annulling the
proclamation of the petitioner as the duly elected Mayor of Guinobatan,
Albay and when it did not exclude from the total
votes of Garcia at least ten (10) votes which were allegedly misappreciated in Garcia’s favor.
We have closely scrutinized the challenged COMELEC decision and
find that the said decision was not arrived at capriciously or whimsically by
respondent COMELEC. A painstaking
re-evaluation of the questioned 67 ballots was made by the COMELEC en banc. In fact, fourteen (14) ballots originally
adjudicated in Garcia’s favor were overruled by the Commission en banc,
thus reducing the number of votes in his favor to 894 votes out of the 2,445
contested ballots. On the other hand, 16 ballots were added in
Rivera’s favor, thus increasing the votes in his favor to 1,087 votes.
Moreover, the appreciation and re-evaluation of ballots are factual
determinations. It is settled that in a
petition for certiorari, findings of fact of administrative bodies are
final unless grave abuse of discretion has marred such factual
determinations. We find none in this
case.
ACCORDINGLY, the Court resolved to DISMISS the petition. The temporary restraining order issued on 20 November
1990 is hereby LIFTED.
SO ORDERED.
Fernan, C.J., Melencio-Herrera,
Cruz, Paras, Feliciano, Bidin,
and Griño-Aquino,
JJ., concur.
Narvasa , J., see dissent.
Gutierrez, Jr. and Davide, Jr., JJ., join Justice Narvasa in his dissent.
Regalado, J., see concurring opinion.
Sarmiento, J., no part, petitioner’s
counsel is a member of his former law firm.
Medialdea, J., no part, petitioner’s
counsel is the law firm of his son.
Gancayco, J., on leave.
Clean
Clean
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DISSENTING OPINION
NARVASA, J.:
I beg to dissent. I
believe we should override our earlier ruling in Galido
v. COMELEC, G.R. No. 95346, January 18, 1991 to the effect that the
provisions of paragraph 2, Section 2 (20, Article IX-C of the Constitution do
“not preclude a recourse to this Court by way of a special civil action of certiorari”
for the review of “decisions, final orders or rulings of the Commission on
Elections in contests involving elective municipal and barangay
offices.” I think that the “understanding” made of record in the proceedings of
the Constitutional Commission by Commissioner Florenz
D. Regalado (now Associate Justice of this Court) -?
” * * that while these decisions with
respect to barangay and municipal officials are final
and immediately executory and, therefore, not appealable, that does not rule out the possibility of an
original special civil action for certiorari, prohibition, or mandamus,
as the case may be, under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court” -?
is not decisive
since it would appear that Commissioner Regalado made
his observations in the context of the traditional modes of appeal, as
distinguished from the special civil actions referred to by him. In light of this Court’s rulings prior and
subsequent to the effectivity of the 1987
Constitution, I submit that the provision therein incorporated that decisions
of the COMELEC on election contests involving municipal or barangay
officials are final, executory and not appealable,
should be interpreted to mean that no review thereof may henceforth be had by
any mode or manner in this or any other Court.
The matter of judicial
review of decisions, orders or rulings of the Commission on Elections — as
well as of the Civil Service Commission and the Commission on Audit — is
primarily governed by the third sentence of Section 7, Article IX-A of the
Constitution.
Said Section 7 reads as follows:[1]
“Each Commission shall decide by a majority vote of all its Members
any case or matter brought before it within sixty days from the date of its
submission for decision or resolution. A
case or matter is deemed submitted for decision or resolution upon the filing
of the last pleading, brief, or
memorandum required by the rules of the Commission or by the Commission
itself. Unless otherwise provided
by this Constitution or by law, any decision, order, or ruling of each
commission may be brought to the Supreme Court on certiorari by the aggrieved
party within thirty days from receipt of a copy thereof.”
Pursuant to this provision, a review of any decision, order, or
ruling of the COMELEC may be sought by the aggrieved party within thirty days
from receipt thereof, by filing a petition for certiorari with
this Court.[2]
There is, to be sure, a regrettable vagueness in the procedure of
review thus referred to. It is not clear
whether the mode contemplated is that governed by Rule 45 of the Rules of
Court, i.e., an appeal taken by a petition for review on certiorari, or that set out in Rule 65 of the Rules, i.e., the special
civil action of certiorari. This
Court has since had occasion, however,[3]
to interpret said Section 7 as
referring to the special civil action of certiorari under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court conformably
to Aratuc v. Commission on Elections,[4] decided in 1979 — an
interpretation thereafter uniformly and unvaryingly observed and applied as
regards appeals from said Commission — it being presumed that the Members of
the Constitutional Commission which drew up the 1987 Constitution had that familiar
precedent in mind when it adopted the provision governing review of final
dispositions of the Constitutional Commissions.
It is evident that the Constitutional Commission did not see fit
to adopt any of the traditional modes of appeal in this jurisdiction,
namely: (1) ordinary appeal or appeal by
writ of error (under Rule 40, 41, and Rule 122, Rules of Court) — which is
deemed to be a matter of right and may raise issues of fact or mixed issues of
fact and law; (2) appeal by certiorari
to the Supreme Court from a Regional Trial Court[5]
or the Court of Appeals under Rule 45 or Rule 122, Rules of Court — which is
not a matter of right but entirely dependent on this Court’s discretion, guided
by criteria set out in said Rule 45, and allowing only questions of law to be
set up; and (3) appeal by petition for review under B.P. No. 129[6]
The Constitutional Commission opted, to repeat, to prescribe the
special civil action of certiorari under
Rule 65, rather than the usual procedures of appeal just mentioned, as the
process for the review of the decisions, orders or rulings of the COMELEC. It also decreed that that certiorari action, as a review
procedure, may be instituted only in the Supreme Court. This mode of review necessarily limits the
questions that may be raised thereby to those indicated by said Rule 65, to
wit: whether or not the COMELEC
“has acted without or in excess of its **
jurisdiction, or with grave abuse of discretion.”[7]
Moreover, it is entirely discretionary on the part of the Supreme Court to
accept or reject the invocation of its supervisory jurisdiction as a form of
appeal or review process.[8]
Generally, then, any order, ruling or judgment of the COMELEC may
be thus appealed, or sought to be reviewed through the extraordinary remedy of certiorari under Rule 65.[9] In his petition, it behooves the
aggrieved party, the appellant, to attempt to persuade this Court that the
COMELEC had indeed acted without jurisdiction, in excess of its jurisdiction,
or with grave abuse of discretion, these being, as already pointed out, the
only issues that may properly be raised.
There are, however, certain orders or judgments which are
pronounced in quite categorical terms to be unappealable. Section
2, Article IX-C, of the Constitution provides, in its second sentence,[10]
that:
“ ***
“Decisions, final orders, or rulings of the Commission on election
contests involving elective municipal and barangay
offices shall be final, executory, and not appealable.”
It bears stressing that the final, executory and unappealable character of the COMELEC’s rulings, orders or
decisions in election contests involving elective municipal and barangay offices, is pronounced not by statute or
presidential issuance, but by the Constitution itself. This is a relevant consideration because
while Congress is granted by Section 2, Article VIII of the Constitution the
“power to define, prescribe, and apportion the jurisdiction of the various
courts, ** (it) may not deprive the Supreme Court of its jurisdiction over
cases enumerated in Section 5” of the same Article VIII; and said Section
5 declares it to be one of the powers of the Supreme Court to “(r)eview, reverse, modify, or affirm on appeal or certiorari, as the law or the
Rules of Court may provide, final judgments and orders of lower courts in **
(specifically listed cases).“[11] It is in truth this fundamental
limitation on the legislative prerogative to “define, prescribe, and
apportion the jurisdiction” of courts — which is, that the Supreme Court
may not be deprived by law of jurisdiction over certain particular cases —
that underlay this Court’s doctrines allowing review by the special civil
action of certiorari under
Rule 65 of judgments and final orders of the National Labor Relations
Commission under the Labor Code, and the Central Board of Assessment Appeals,
from which no appeal is prescribed by law.[12]
It cannot be gainsaid however that while Congress may not deprive
the Supreme Court of its constitutionally stated powers, that self-same Constitution
may itself effect that deprivation; and this appears to be precisely the
purpose and intent of said Section 2, Article IX-C of the Constitution as
written: to remove from this Court’s
power to review, revise, reverse, modify, or affirm on appeal or certiorari final judgments and
orders of the COMELEC in “election contests involving elective municipal
and barangay offices.”
There is here a declaration, clear and unmistakable, that no
party aggrieved by a decision of the COMELEC in an election contest
involving an elective municipal or barangay
office is permitted to seek a review of that judgment by the mode
prescribed for review of COMELEC decisions in general, i.e., by petition for certiorari
under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court which ascribes to the COMELEC lack or
excess of jurisdiction, or grave abuse of discretion invalidating its judgment
on the case.
There is therefore no way by which a final judgment or order of
the COMELEC in “election contests involving elective municipal and barangay offices” may be elevated to the Supreme
Court. As already pointed out, the
Constitution prescribes none of the three (3) traditional modes of appeal as a
procedure for the review of decisions or rulings of the COMELEC. It has singled out the special action of certiorari under Rule 65 as the
sole method for the review of the COMELEC’s judgments
and rulings, in general. But even this mode of review is,
by specific provision, eliminated as regards, particularly, “election
contests involving elective municipal and barangay
offices.” It is legally impossible for a party aggrieved in such contests
to appeal by any of the three (3) usual modes of appeal, none being provided
for; and it is legally impossible for said party to resort to the mode of
review prescribed for judgments and rulings of the COMELEC, generally: the special civil action of certiorari under Rule 65. It thus results that, as explicitly ordained
by Section 7 of Article IX-C of the Constitution:
“Decisions, final orders, or rulings of the Commission on
election contests involving elective municipal and barangay
offices shall be final, executory, and not appealable.“
Hence, the institution by the petitioner in this Court of the
special civil action of certiorari at
bar, in an effort to nullify and set aside the decision of the COMELEC en banc in the election contest
between him and private respondent Garcia involving the elective municipal
office of mayor of Guinobatan — on the theory that
the COMELEC had acted without or in excess of jurisdiction or with grave abuse
of discretion — is totally unavailing and must be dismissed. For it is precisely that action — which, to
repeat, is the general
mode of review of COMELEC decisions — that is proscribed in the particular
cases of election contests involving elective municipal and barangay
offices. And it is entirely inutile to
attempt to distinguish between certiorari
as a mode of appeal and certiorari
as a special civil action, considering that it is in truth the
special civil action that is prescribed as the mode of appeal. Apart from this, to allow review of COMELEC
decisions on election contests involving elective municipal and barangay offices by certiorari as a special civil action, and not as a mode of
review, would make the constitutional proviso in question a dead thing; for
then, every party aggrieved in any such contest would seek to make the
insubstantial and specious distinction between certiorari as a special civil action and as a mode of
review, and said election contests involving elective municipal and barangay offices will always be subject of review through certiorari as a special civil action, as tenuously distinguished from certiorari
as a form of appeal. That
the constitutional intent be set at naught in this manner cannot, of course, be
allowed.
I therefore vote to dismiss the petition and lift and set aside
the temporary restraining order issued on November 10, 1990.
[1]
Emphasis supplied
[2]
SEC. 1, Rule 39 of the COMELEC Rules of Procedure reproduces the relevant
portion of Sec. 7, ART. IX-A, Constitution
[3]
Dario v. Mison, 176 SCRA 84, 111 reaffirming
the teaching of Aratuc; Pedalizo
v. Mariano, UDK-9819, March 15, 1990 to the effect that decisions, orders,
or rulings of the Constitutional Commissions may only be brought to and
reviewed by the Supreme Court on certiorari under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court
alone, citing Dario
[4]
88 SCRA 251
[5]
Sec. 5 (2e), ART. X, 1973
Constitution; Sec. 5 (2e), ART. VIII, 1987 Constitution; RA 4330
[6]
Sec. 22; Sec. 29, Judiciary Act of 1948 as amended by RA 5433
[7]
Sec. 1, Rule 65
[8]
Sec. 6, Rule 65
[9]
This would include, orders, rulings or judgments in election contests involving
provincial officials, pre-proclamation cases, disqualify candidates, postpone
or suspend elections, etc. (SEC. 3, Rule 39, COMELEC Rules)
[10]
Emphasis supplied; SEC. 2, Rule 39 of the COMELEC Rules hews to the
constitutional provision. It reads as
follows: “SEC. 2. Non-reviewable
decisions. — Decisions in appeals from courts of general or limited
jurisdiction in election cases relating to the elections, returns, and
qualifications of municipal and barangay officials
are not appealable.”
[11]
I.e.: “(a) All cases in which the
constitutionality or validity of any treaty, international or executive
agreement, law, presidential decree, proclamation, order, instruction,
ordinance, or regulation is in question; (b) All cases involving the legality
of any tax, impost, assessment, or toll, or any penalty imposed in relation
thereto; (c) All cases in which the jurisdiction of any lower court is in
issue; (d) All criminal cases in which the penalty imposed is reclusion perpetua or
higher; (e) All cases in which only an error or question of law is
involved.”
[12]
SEE San Miguel Corporation v. Secretary of Labor, 64 SCRA 56 (1975) and Caltex (Phil.), Inc. v. Central Board of Assessment
Appeals, 114 SCRA 296 (1982)
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CONCURRING OPINION
REGALADO, J.:
It
is settled that, under the present state of the law and jurisprudence,
no appeal lies from the decisions, orders or rulings of the Commission on Elections
or, for that matter, the Civil Service Commission and the Commission on
Audit. Dario vs. Mison, et al.
(176 SCRA 84 [1989]) clarified that the recourse by certiorari from said
constitutional commissions to this Court, authorized by Section 7, Article IX-A
of the Constitution, refers to the special civil action of certiorari
under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court. Consequently, the authorized modes of appeal, i.e., ordinary appeal and
appeal by petition for review on certiorari under Rule 45, cannot be
availed of to challenge the awards, orders or rulings of said constitutional commissions. The third mode, which is the petition for
review under Batas Pambansa Blg. 129, is not involved here.
What the foregoing observations actually boil down to is that the decisions, orders, or rulings of said
constitutional commissions are not subject to appellate review, that is, with
this Court acting in the exercise of appellate jurisdiction and exercising its
power of review over alleged errors of law and, sometimes, of fact or
both. Such decisions, orders or rulings
are not, however, invulnerable to an original civil action of certiorari,
prohibition or mandamus invoking the original jurisdiction of this
Court, under its power of control and supervision over the lower courts, to
pass upon errors of jurisdiction imputed to said commissions. This is inevitable and justified because no
appeal or any other plain, speedy or adequate remedy in the ordinary course of
law lies from said adjudications.
Coming now to the case at bar involving the Commission on
Elections, the dissenting opinion points out that the “(d)ecisions, final
orders or rulings of the Commission on election contests involving elective
municipal and barangay offices shall be final, executory and not appealable,”
as provided in Section 2(2), Article IX-C of the Constitution. From this, it is posited that such
dispositions contemplated therein may no longer be assailed in this Court in an
original action for certiorari and, concomitantly, in a prohibition or mandamus
proceeding. I am constrained to
disagree.
I find no reason why the same considerations and rationale
authorizing an original action for certiorari under the aforesaid
Section 7, Article IX-A, that is, since the decisions, orders or rulings stated
therein are unappealable, should not apply to the same determination of said
commission under Section 2(2), Article IX-C which are likewise
unappealable. That Section 7, Article
IX-A is supposed to be the general rule while Section 2(2), Article IX-C is a
special rule does not, to my mind, constitute a justification for a dichotomous
treatment. Both rules, instead of being
discrete and inconsistent, should be complementary and consonant. If, under the situation envisioned in
Section 7, Article IX-A the
possibility of jurisdictional errors warrants availment of the extraordinary
writ of certiorari, the same could just as well exist in the
commission’s dispositions stated in Section 2(2), Article IX-C and likewise
justify resort to the same writ.
It is true that the Constitution bars Congress from depriving
this Court of the power of appellate review, on ordinary appeal or petition for review on certiorari,
over certain specified cases enumerated in Section 5, Article VIII. That power of this Court to review, revise,
reverse, modify, or affirm the
judgments and orders of lower courts in said cases shall be “as the law or
Rules of Court may provide.” Hence, where no such mode of appeal to this
Court is provided by the law or the Rules of Court, appellate review is unavailable. However, in its stead and precisely because
of its unavailability, the remedy of an original action for certiorari
is disponible, albeit limited only to jurisdictional grounds, as is the current
procedure with respect to judgments and final orders of the National Labor
Relations Commission and the Central Board of Assessment Appeals.
It is argued, however, that the foregoing procedure is
permissible because the elimination of the right to appeal in said cases was
pronounced by statute or presidential issuances, but not in the present case
since the unappealability of the decisions, final orders or rulings of the
Commission on Elections in Section 2(2) of Article IX-C is by declaration of
the Constitution itself. I cannot see
how this could make such a difference as to result in a bifurcated procedural
rule. Said Section 2(2) is clear. It merely declares the adjudications stated
therein final, executory and not appealable but it does not declare them
unassailable on jurisdictional errors which may have attended the same. Had the contrary been intended by the
Constitutional Commission, it could readily have so provided. Yet the deliberations on this particular
provision (Record of the Constitutional Commission, Vol. I, p. 562) show that
the remedies of certiorari, prohibition and mandamus were
categorically agreed and intended to be
available in this particular instance. In sum, what was intended and provided was that decisions, final orders
and rulings of the Commission on Elections in election contests involving
elective municipal and barangay offices shall
be final, executory and not appealable and, therefore, no further appeal
may be taken therefrom. That is
all. Excluded from that proscription,
which is directed only against another appeal, are the original special civil
actions of certiorari, prohibition or mandamus, when proper and
justified, because they serve and are intended for specific objectives and are
based on different grounds.
It is suggested that when
Section 2(2) of Article IX-C declares that the dispositions of the commission
involving municipal and barangay officials are “not appealable,” what
is actually barred is an original action under Rule 65 since that is the
“sole method for the review of the COMELEC’s judgments and rulings, in
general,” pursuant to Section 7 of Article IX-A. It should be recalled, however, that the records of the
Constitutional Commission are not clear on whether the recourse by certiorari
stated in said Section 7 referred to an appeal under Rule 45 or an original
action under Rule 65. It was settled,
as aforesaid, only in Dario. At
any rate, since Section 2(2) of Article IX-C clearly interdicts only an appeal,
the evident purpose could not be but to explicitate that in the specific cases
embraced therein no further appeals under Rule 45 should be allowed since prior
appellate proceedings from the lower courts to the commission had already been
availed of and the issues permissible therein were already resolved.
While it may be advanced that the special civil action of certiorari
is allowed in Section 7, Article IX-A because only one evaluative stage has
been conducted, that is, by the Commission on Elections alone, whereas the
situation in Section 2(2), Article IX-C contemplates two adjudicative levels,
that of the lower courts and the commission, I do not find this argument, which
has a ring of familiarity but in a different setting, a compelling reason to
set aside what is clear in the Constitution and further clarified in the plenary
deliberations before the latter provision was adopted. Nor should the possibility of unnecessary
resort to special civil actions in this Court from adjudications involved in
Section 2(2). Article IX-C be allowed
to deprive a party with a just cause of an ultimate remedy. After all, such remedies do not
indiscriminately lie for just any jurisdictional error. The abuse of discretion to be actionable
must be grave, in the concept which jurisprudence has lucidly elaborated on
this term; and the lack or excess of jurisdiction must, of necessity, be patent
and indisputable.