[ G.R. No.12293. January 25, 1917 ] 36 Phil. 165
[ G.R. No.12293. January 25, 1917 ]
GREGORIO BASA, PETITIONER, VS. HILARION SENATIN ET AL., RESPONDENTS. D E C I S I O N
TRENT, J.:
This is an original action instituted in this court wherein the petitioner prays that a writ of prohibition issue to the provincial board of the Province of Mindoro, ordering it to abstain from proceeding further with a certain election contest pending before it.
The petition for a preliminary injunction during the pendency of the case was denied by this court on October 12, 1916. The. case was submitted on November 4, 1916. After the institution of this action and before its final submission, the respondent board decided the contest in favor of the therein contestant (the herein respondent), Hilarion Senatin, and the case now partakes of the nature of certiorari, and the only question involved is whether or not the respondent board had jurisdiction to hear and determine the contest. Notwithstanding the fact that the pleadings have not been formally amended, we will proceed to determine that question in order to avoid further delay and costs to the parties incident thereto.
The facts are these: At the election held on June 6, 1916, for township officials for Pola, Province of Mindoro, Gregorio Basa received, according to the certified returns of the election inspectors, fifty votes, Hilarion Senatin forty-eight, Diego Fortu twenty-one, Hilario Senatin thirteen, Anastasio Gaba nine, and Francisco Umali one for president of the township. The returns were received by the provincial board at Calapan on June 8, 1916, without any protest. The provincial governor received, however, on the same date a written statement from Hilarion Senatin protesting against the returns of the inspectors. A question then arose as to whether the contest should be heard and determined by the provincial board or the Court of First Instance. In the meantime, Hilarion Senatin presented, on June 12, 1916,a motion contesting the election. Immediately thereafter the court certified the case to the provincial board upon the ground that the latter had exclusive jurisdiction to hear and decide township election contests. When the case was called for hearing before the provincial board, Gregorio Basa presented a motion, praying the board to dismiss the contest for the reason that the same had not been presented to the board of election inspectors of Pola within the three days fixed by subsection b of section 9 of Act No. 1397. Hilarion Senatin in answer to this motion, alleged that the protest had been delivered to the board of election inspectors within the three days. After examining the testimony, both oral and documentary, the provincial board found that the protestant presented his protest in due form to the board of election inspectors of Pola on the morning of June 7, 1916; that the board of election inspectors refused to accept the protest; and that the board informed the contestant that he must forward his protest to the provincial board, and denied the motion to dismiss the case. The provincial board then proceeded to hear the case upon the merits and “after hearing considerable evidence for and against,” and after examining the ballots, found that Hilarion Senatin had received sixty-two votes and that the protestee, Gregorio Basa, had received only fifty votes. The board thereupon declared Hilarion Senatin duly elected president of the township of Pola and directed him to assume that office on the date fixed by law.
It is now urged on behalf of the petitioner that the protest having been presented three days late, the provincial board did not have jurisdiction in the premises and that it should have dismissed the protest. It is further alleged that if the provincial board did acquire jurisdiction, it lost jurisdiction because the contestant abandoned his case before the board by instituting another in the Court of First Instance and that the return of the case by the Court of First Instance to the provincial board did not confer upon the latter jurisdiction to hear the contest.
Section 9 (b and c) of Act No. 1397 reads as follows:
“(b) Immediately after the close of the election the result of the voting shall be canvassed by the board of election judges, a certificate of the result of the election shall be prepared in duplicate and signed by the members of the board, and this certificate shall be a sufficient warrant for those elected to assume their offices unless objections are filed as follows: A duplicate containing the additional statement that a term of three days is granted in which any resident of the township can present to the board, or to the chairman thereof, in writing, such objections as he may deem just and legal against those declared elected, shall be prepared by the board and nosted at the main entrance of the township building.
“(c) On the day following the said term of three days a duplicate of the election certificate and the objections made, if any, shall be sent by the chairman of the board of judges to the provincial board. Should the provincial board, upon investigation and after hearing of evidence, if necessary, find the election legal, they shall, within seven days after the receipt of said documents, direct the newly elected officers to qualify and enter upon their duties on the day fixed by this Act; but if the provincial board determines that there has been an illegality committed in the election of any officer, or that any candidate returned is not eligible, they shall so declare in writing, with the reason therefor, and shall order a special election to fill the vacancy thus occasioned, and shall certify their finding and order to the township secretary, who shall spread the same upon the records of the council. In determining the legality of the election the provincial board shall ignore irregularities or informalities which do not prevent the declared result from being the actual will of the electors.”
Act No. 1397 was repealed in its entirety by Act No. 2657, known as the Administrative Code, but subsections (b) and (c), supra, were reenacted without any changes whatever, except the words “this Act” (c) were changed to “by law” and now compose section 2303 of Act No. 2657. Section 12 of Act No. 1397 provides that “a plurality of votes shall be sufficient to elect.” This provision was reenacted without change and is now found in section 2305 of Act No. 2657.
Counsel for the petitioner, in support of this first contention to the effect that the first protest was not presented within time, insisted that the true date of its presentation was June 12th, when the contestant instituted the proceedings in the Court of First Instance. If this contention be well founded, it is quite clear that the protest was not presented within three days. But June 12th is not the date when the protest, which the provincial board determined, was presented. That protest was offered to the board of election inspectors within the three days and on the board’s declining to receive it and advising the contestant to present the same to the provincial board, the contestant, following the advice of the board of election inspectors, filed his protest with the provincial governor, who is, by law, the president of the provincial board, on the 8th of June, which was within the time required by law.
The petitioner’s second contention is without foundation for the reason that the contestant, in filing a motion in the Court of First Instance, did not withdraw his protest which he had filed with the provincial board. He took that course for the sole purpose of making sure that his protest would be heard by either the court or the provincial board and when he filed his motion in the Court of First Instance, the question as to who should determine the contest had not yet been settled.
For the foregoing reasons, judgment will be entered dismissing the petition, with costs against the petitioner, Gregorio Basa. So ordered.
Torres, Carson, and Araullo, JJ., concur.