EN BANC
ARTEMIO PEDRAGOZA, G.R.
No. 169885
Petitioner,
Present:
PANGANIBAN, C.J.,
PUNO,
QUISUMBING,
YNARES-SANTIAGO,
SANDOVAL-GUTIERREZ,
CARPIO,
-
versus - AUSTRIA-MARTINEZ,
CORONA,
CARPIO MORALES,
CALLEJO, SR.,
AZCUNA,
TINGA,
CHICO-NAZARIO,
GARCIA, and
VELASCO, JR., JJ.
COMMISSION
ON ELECTIONS and
Promulgated:
FRANCISCO SUMULONG, JR.,
Respondents. July 25, 2006
x ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
x
CARPIO, J.:
This
is a petition for certiorari[1] of
the Resolution dated
Petitioner
Artemio Pedragoza (“petitioner”) and respondent Francisco Sumulong, Jr.
(“respondent”) were among the candidates for Punong Barangay of De La Paz,
In
his Answer, petitioner denied respondent’s claim and filed a counter-protest,
contending that he was the one prejudiced by election irregularities.
The trial court revised the contested
ballots.
The Ruling of the Trial
Court
On
Respondent appealed to the COMELEC. The appeal, docketed as EAC No. 42-2003, was raffled to the First Division.
The Ruling of the COMELEC
In its
Resolution of
The First Division noted that the parties invoked the
following grounds for the revision of ballots: (1) the assailed ballots are
marked because unnecessary words or figures, identifying markings, erasures,
and retracing of letters were manifest on the ballots or that distinctive
circles, lines, or crosses were written on the ballots; (2) pairs or sets of
ballots were written by one person or that two or more persons participated in
filling-up one ballot; and (3) certain ballots are invalid because they were
not signed at the back by the Chairman of the Board of Election Tellers.
Applying pertinent rules of ballot appreciation, the First Division deducted 75
invalid votes from, and added five valid votes to, petitioner’s tally, leaving
a total of 2,189 votes. On the other hand, the First Division deducted 12
invalid votes from respondent’s tally, leaving a total of 2,208 votes. Thus the
19-vote margin in respondent’s favor.
Petitioner
sought reconsideration with the COMELEC En Banc, listing the ballots he
wanted re-examined. However, in the per curiam Resolution of
Petitioner
raises two contentions in this petition: (1) that the Court should invalidate
the Resolution of 30 September 2005 for having been promulgated without a
quorum because of the failure of Commissioners Sadain and Tuason to indicate the reasons for their
taking no part in the case and, alternatively, (2) that the COMELEC En Banc
committed grave abuse of discretion in affirming the findings of the First
Division.
The Issues
The petition raises the following issues:
1) Whether
the failure of Commissioners Sadain and
Tuason to indicate their reasons for taking no part in the case annuls
the Resolution of
2) Whether
the COMELEC En Banc committed grave
abuse of discretion in affirming the First Division’s findings.
The Ruling
of the Court
The
petition has no merit. We hold that the Resolution of
The Failure of Commissioners Sadain and Tuason
to State their Reasons for Taking No Part in
the Resolution of
does not Annul that Ruling
Under Section 1, Rule 18 of the COMELEC Rules of Procedure[4] (“COMELEC Rules”), a COMELEC member who takes no part in a decision or resolution must state the reason for his inhibition. The provision states:
Procedure
in Making Decisions. ― The conclusions of the Commission in any case
submitted to it for decision en banc or in Division shall be reached in
consultation before the case is assigned by raffle to a Member for the writing
of the opinion of the Commission or the Division and a certification to this
effect signed by the Chairman or the Presiding Commissioner, as the case may
be, shall be incorporated in the decision. Any Member who took no part, or
dissented, or abstained from a decision or resolution must state the reason
therefor. (Emphasis supplied)
Section 13, Article VIII of the 1987 Constitution
imposes an identical requirement on the members of this Court and all lower collegiate courts.[5] By
intent of the Constitution’s framers, as reflected in the language of the text,
this requirement is mandatory.[6]
Owing to the exact identity of the two provisions’ phrasing of the requirement
in question, Section 1, Rule 18 (which, in all
probability, was lifted from Section 13, Article VIII), must be of mandatory
nature itself.
There is no dispute here that two
COMELEC Commissioners took no part in the
We cannot sustain this view.
To begin
with, even if the votes of Commissioners Sadain and Tuason are disregarded (for
whatever reason), a quorum still remains, with three of the then five[8]
COMELEC Commissioners voting to deny petitioner’s motion for reconsideration.
The more important question is whether, despite such quorum, the
While there is no extant
record of the COMELEC’s proceedings
in adopting Section 1, Rule 18 of the COMELEC Rules, the parallel
deliberations of the framers of the 1987 Constitution on Section 13, Article
VIII shed light on the purpose of the rule requiring a member of this Court and
all lower collegiate courts to state his reason for taking no part in a case. Because of the exact identity of the
rule in question as stated in Section 1, Rule 18 and Section 13, Article VIII,
these deliberations apply here by analogy.
In discussing the purpose of the rule in question, which was absent in the 1935 and 1973 Constitutions,[9] Constitutional Commissioner and former Chief Justice Roberto Concepcion explained that it was meant to “[see] to it that all justices participate [in the promulgation of decisions] x x x,” thus:
MR. RAMA. Madam President, I ask that Commissioner Suarez be recognized on Section 11.
THE
PRESIDENT. Commissioner Suarez is recognized.
MR.
SUAREZ. Thank you, madam President.
As
proposed to be amended, Section 11 would read: “x x x x ANY MEMBER WHO TOOK NO
PART OR DISSENTED, OR ABSTAINED FROM A DECISION OR RESOLUTION MUST STATE THE
REASON THEREFOR. THE SAME REQUIREMENTS SHALL BE OBSERVED BY ALL LOWER
COLLEGIATE COURTS.”
The
proposed amendment seeks the deletion of the phrase “dissenting or abstaining,”
and in lieu thereof, the substituted phrase “WHO TOOK NO PART, OR DISSENTED, OR
ABSTAINED FROM A DECISION OR RESOLUTION” and then the word “THEREFOR,” Madam
President.
THE
PRESIDENT. Are there any comments? Commissioner Guingona is recognized.
MR.
GUINGONA. Madam President, may I just inquire where the reason is supposed to
be indicated. Does the reason refer to the certification, madam President?
MR.
CONCEPCION. No. In the decision itself.
MR.
GUINGONA. That is it. I am referring now to the first instance where a Member
takes no part, where, for example, he takes no part because he is abroad or is
hospitalized. I was wondering whether this need not be a personal statement.
x x x
x
MR.
MR.
GUINGONA. This was an addition, Madam President. Originally, it was only
referring to “abstentions,” it was only referring to instances when the justice
dissented.
Thank
you.
MR. CONCEPCION. It is also one way of seeing to it that all justices participate, because something must be done by the judge who did not take part and the reason for his failure to participate should be stated. It may be rather awkward for a judge to say that he is abroad. We feel that judges would, in general, prefer to avoid such explanations to appear in many cases. The explanation was required before in case of dissent. Now a judge must state why he took no part, or dissented, or abstained. (Emphasis supplied)[10]
Being a devise to dissuade members of this Court and all lower collegiate courts (or in this case, the members of the COMELEC) from not taking part in the deliberation of cases, the requirement has nothing to do with the ruling involved but concerns the judge himself. Thus, non-compliance with the rule does not annul the ruling in which a judge takes no part but may be basis for holding him responsible for the omission.
Indeed, the omission involved here is akin to the failure of the head of a collegiate court to issue the certification under Section 13, Article VIII that “The conclusions of the x x x Court in any case submitted to it for decision en banc or in division [was] reached in consultation before the case [was] assigned to a Member for the writing of the opinion of the Court,” a requirement also imposed on the Chairman or the Presiding Commissioner of the COMELEC, as the case may be, under Section 1, Rule 18. We held in Consing v. Court of Appeals that such omission does not invalidate the questioned ruling but “may be basis for holding the official responsible for the omission to account therefor,” thus:
The certification requirement, x x x, is a new provision introduced by the framers of the 1987 Constitution. Its purpose is to ensure the implementation of the constitutional requirement that decisions of the Supreme Court and lower collegiate courts, such as the Court of Appeals, Sandiganbayan and Court of Tax Appeals, are reached after consultation with the members of the court sitting en banc or in a division before the case is assigned to a member thereof for decision-writing. The decision is thus rendered by the court as a body and not merely by a member thereof [I Record of the Constitutional Commission 498-500]. This is in keeping with the very nature of a collegial body which arrives at its decisions only after deliberation, the exchange of views and ideas, and the concurrence of the required majority vote.
The absence, however, of the certification would not necessarily mean that the case submitted for decision had not been reached in consultation before being assigned to one member for the writing of the opinion of the Court since the regular performance of official duty is presumed [Sec. 5 (m) of Rule 131, Rules of Court]. The lack of certification at the end of the decision would only serve as evidence of failure to observe the certification requirement and may be basis for holding the official responsible for the omission to account therefor [See I Record of the Constitutional Commission 460]. Such absence of certification would not have the effect of invalidating the decision.[11] (Emphasis supplied)
Accordingly,
we hold that the failure of Commissioners Sadain and Tuason to state the
reasons for their inhibition from the
The COMELEC did not Commit Grave Abuse of
Discretion
On
petitioner’s alternative contention that the COMELEC En Banc committed
grave abuse of discretion in affirming the findings of the First Division, we
find no merit to this claim. In his petition, petitioner contented himself with
making the sweeping charge that the COMELEC En Banc’s ruling is contrary
to “law, x x x evidence and existing jurisprudence” without substantiating his
claim. Perhaps realizing this, petitioner, in his Reply to respondent’s
Comment, reproduced the grounds he raised in his motion for reconsideration
with the COMELEC En Banc. This does not suffice to sustain his claim of
grave abuse of discretion. The office of a petition for certiorari is not to
correct simple errors of judgment but “capricious and whimsical exercise of judgment amounting to
lack of jurisdiction, or arbitrary and despotic exercise of power because of
passion or personal hostility.”[12]
We have gone over the grounds petitioner raised in his motion for
reconsideration with the COMELEC En Banc and we find no such grave error
tainting the Resolution of
WHEREFORE, we DISMISS the petition.
SO ORDERED.
ANTONIO T. CARPIO
Associate
Justice
WE CONCUR:
ARTEMIO V.
PANGANIBAN
Chief Justice
REYNATO S. PUNO
Associate Justice |
LEONARDO A. QUISUMBING Associate Justice |
|
|
CONSUELO YNARES-SANTIAGO Associate Justice |
ANGELINA SANDOVAL-GUTIERREZ Associate Justice
|
|
|
MA. ALICIA AUSTRIA-MARTINEZ Associate Justice |
RENATO
C. CORONA Associate Justice
|
|
|
CONCHITA CARPIO MORALES Associate Justice |
ROMEO
J. CALLEJO, SR. Associate Justice |
|
|
ADOLFO S. AZCUNA Associate Justice |
DANTE O. TINGA Associate Justice |
|
|
MINITA V. CHICO-NAZARIO Associate
Justice |
CANCIO C. GARCIA Associate Justice |
|
PRESBITERO J. VELASCO, JR.
Associate Justice
CERTIFICATION
Pursuant to Section 13, Article VIII of the Constitution, I certify that the conclusions in the above Decision had been reached in consultation before the case was assigned to the writer of the opinion of the Court.
ARTEMIO V. PANGANIBAN
Chief Justice
[1] Under Rule 64 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure.
[2] Petitioner obtained 2,259 votes over respondent’s 2,220.
[3] The trial court noted:
[B]oth
[protestant and protestee] claimed that majority of the recounted ballots [sic]
were written by one hand, x x x, there were deliberate erasures, unnecessary
markings on the ballots, some ballots [were] written by two persons, no water
mark in one ballot, no signature of the Chairman at the back of the ballot,
[the] name of the candidate was not written in its proper space and other minor
irregularities in the writing of the names of the candidates [sic] x x x.
There
were also Comments on the Election returns/tally sheets wherein the total
number of votes were not properly indicated.
Some portions of the minutes were left blank. There was also no thumb mark in one tally
sheet and in two occasions there was no time [sic] when the counting of ballots
started and when it was finished. Some
of the ballot stubs were found inside the ballot boxes which were not supposed
to be there. (Rollo, pp. 62-63)
[4] Dated
[5] This provision states: “The conclusions of the Supreme Court in any case submitted to it for decision en banc or in division shall be reached in consultation before the case is assigned to a Member for the writing of the opinion of the Court. A certification to this effect signed by the Chief Justice shall be issued and a copy thereof attached to the record of the case and served upon the parties. Any Member who took no part, or dissented, or abstained from a decision or resolution must state the reason therefor. The same requirements shall be observed by all lower collegiate courts.” (Emphasis supplied)
[6] I Record of the Constitutional Commission (“record”) 501. See
J.
Bernas, the Constitution
of the Republic of the
[7] Petitioner then posits that what the COMELEC should have done next was request the Presiding Justice of the Court of Appeals to appoint a Justice from that court to sit in the case and participate in rendering another ruling following Section 2, Rule 4 of the COMELEC Rules which provides: “Disqualification Resulting in Lack of Quorum. – If the disqualification or inhibition of a Member should result in a lack of quorum in the Commission sitting en banc, the presiding Justice of the Court of Appeals, upon request of the Commission, shall designate a Justice of said Court to sit in said case for the purpose of hearing and rendering a decision thereon.” (Rollo, pp. 12-14).
[8] President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo subsequently appointed former Court of Appeals’ Presiding Justice Romeo Brawner as the sixth Commissioner.
[9] The 1935 and 1973 Constitutions imposed the requirement only on any member of the Supreme Court who dissents from a ruling. The 1973 Constitution expanded the rule’s coverage to “all inferior collegiate courts.”
[10] V RECORD 642.
[11] G.R. No. 78272,
[12] Navarosa
v. Commission on Elections, G.R. No.
157957,