[ G.R. No. 48018. February 01, 1941 ] 71 Phil. 243
[ G.R. No. 48018. February 01, 1941 ]
NOE AGADO ET AL., PETITIONERS, VS. ALEJO LABRADOR, JUDGE OF FIRST INSTANCE OF RIZAL, AND PRUDENCIO S. DEL ROSARIO, RESPONDENTS. D E C I S I O N
LAUREL, J.:
In the general election held on December 10, 1940, Prudencio S. del Rosario and Cesar Santos were the rival candidates for the office of mayor of the municipality of San Mateo, Province of Rizal. In accordance with section 12 of the Election Code, voting was held in the San Lazaro Leprosarium, Manila, under the supervision of the Executive Judge of the Municipal Court of the City of Manila. A canvass of the votes cast by the lepers in said leprosarium for the municipality of San Mateo showed that Prudencio S. del Rosario received one vote for the office of municipal mayor. The counting of the votes cast for the municipality of San Mateo in the said leprosarium ended at about 3 o’clock in the morning of December 11, 1940. Immediately thereafter the Executive Judge of the Municipal Court of the City of Manila made the corresponding statement of election and filed with the Bureau of Posts a telegram addressed to the municipal treasurer of San Mateo, stating that according to the results of the voting held at the San Lazaro Leprosarium, one vote was cast for Prudencio S. del Rosario for the office of mayor o£ the municipality of San Mateo. This telegram was received by the municipal treasurer of San Mateo at about 10 o’clock in the monring of December 11, 1940; whereupon the municipal treasurer furnished the chairman of the board of election inspectors for precinct No. 1 of San Mateo with a certified copy of said telegram. By that time, however, the said board of inspectors had already finished counting the votes and made the corresponding proclamation of the results of its canvass, with the result that the vote set forth in the aforesaid telegram was not included in the return made for said precinct No. 1. On December 14, 1940, at 1:30 o’clock in the afternoon, a meeting of the municipal board of canvassers for San Mateo was held for the purpose of canvassing the returns from the different precincts in said municipality, at which meeting the municipal treasurer furnished said board of canvassers with all the election returns, as well as with a copy of the statement of election received by him from the Executive Judge of the Municipal Court of the City of Manila. In the canvass made by the municipal board of canvassers the vote cast in the San Lazaro Leprosarium for Prudencio S. del Rosario was not included, with the result that said board of canvassers found that Prudencio S. del Rosario and his rival, Cesar Santo3, each received 954 votes. Evidently, the reason for the refusal of the board of canvassers to include the vote cast in the San Lazaro Leprosarium in favor of Prudencio S. del Rosario was that said vote had not been included in the return from precinct No. 1. Accordingly, the board of canvassers announced that the two candidates, Prudencio S. del Rosario and Cesar Santos, each received 954 votes, and since there was a tie for the office of mayor, the drawing of the lots by the tied candidates was scheduled to take place in the public plaza on December 25, 1940, at 4 o’clock in the afternoon. It appears that after the adjournment of the meeting of the board of canvassers, the latter, in the absence of Prudencio S. del Rosario who had already left, reconvened and proceeded to adopt another resolution fixing the date of the drawing of the lots for December 16, 1940, instead of December 25, 1940. Of this latter resolution Prudencio S. del Rosario did not actually receive notice. On December 16, 1940, at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, the drawing of the lots to break the tie between Prudencio S. del Rosario and Cesar Santos took place, in the absence of Prudencio S. del Rosario. In this lottery Cesar Santos won and was proclaimed by the board of canvassers mayor-elect of the municipality of San Mateo. Forthwith, Prudencio S. del Rosario filed in the Court of First Instance of Rizal a petition against the board of inspectors in precinct No. 1 and against the board of canvassers of the municipality of San Mateo (civil case No. 7937, entitled “Prudencio S. del Rosario, petitioner, vs. Leonardo Beltran et al., respondents”), praying that said board of canvassers be ordered to refrain from holding the canvass of the returns from the different precincts of San Mateo, and that said board of inspectors be authorized to alter or modify the election return of precinct No. 1 by including the vote cast in favor of Prudencio S. del Rosario in the San Lazaro Leprosarium. Inasmuch as it later appeared that, at the time of the filing of the aforesaid petition the drawing of the lots had already taken place with the result above noted, the Court of First Instance of Rizal, in the course of the hearing, ordered Prudencio S. del Rosario to make, as he in fact made, the corresponding amendments in his petition. After trial, the Court of First Instance of Rizal, presided over by Judge Alejo Labrador, under date of December 28, 1940, rendered judgment the dispositive por- tion of which reads as follows: .
“For all the foregoing considerations, the canvass of votes held by the respondent municipal board of canvas- sers of San Mateo, Rizal, on December 14, 1940, and the subsequent proceedings adopted by them on December 16, 1940, in drawing lots for the determination of the winner as between the two candidates for mayor who had supposedly tied, are hereby declared illegal, and the cer- tificate issued by them declaring a tie vote for the office of mayor and that declaring Cesar Santos elected at the drawing of the lots are hereby declared null and void, and it is hereby ordered that the said respondent municipal board of canvassers immediately convene for the pur- pose of making another canvass and including therein the return from the San Lazaro Leprosarium, Manila, or the certificate of the Executive Judge of the Municipal Court of Manila of the results of the voting held in San Lazaro Leprosarium, Manila, for the municipality of San Mateo, Rizal, Exhibit C. No cause of action having been shown against the respondent board of election inspectors of Precinct No. 1, San Mateo, Rizal, the petition is hereby dismissed with respect to the said respondents without costs. The respondent municipal board of canvassers should pay the costs.”
Whereupon, the present petition for certiorari was filed in this court by the petitioners, as members of the board of canvassers for the municipality of San Mateo, against the respondents, Judge Alejo Labrador and Prudencio S. del Rosario, for the purpose of having this court review and thereafter set aside the judgment rendered by the respondent judge in civil case No. 7937, with a prayer for the issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction against the herein respondents, which writ of preliminary injunction was issued by this court upon the filing by the petitioners of a bond in the amount of P200.
The principal question presented here is whether or not the respondent judge erred or exceeded his jurisdiction in ordering the board of canvassers of San Mateo to re-assemble and make another statement of election with a view to including therein the vote cast for the respondent Prudencio S. del Rosario in the San Lazaro Leprosarium. The petitioners raise the point that said vote cannot be included in the canvass because the telegram of the Executive Judge of the Municipal Court of the City of Manila was received by the board of inspectors in precinct No. 1 after the latter had proclaimed the result of its canvass, reliance being placed on the second paragraph of section 12 of the Election Code which reads as follows:
“The municipal treasurer shall immediately transmit a certified copy of the telegram to the only election precinct or precinct No. 1 of the municipality, and the board of inspectors shall include in its canvass the votes set forth in the telegram, provided the same is received by the board before the result of the canvass is proclaimed.”
Viewed solely in the light of the above-quoted provision, the contention seems plausible; but considered in conjunction with the first pargraph of section 12 of the Election Code, herein below copied, the contention loses merit.
“On the day of the voting, said voters shall vote in the leprosarium before the justice of the peace, for which purpose said officer shall be at the leprosarium at seven o’clock in the morning of that day to receive the votes of the voters of the same, and at two o’clock in the afternoon or as soon as the voters who desire to vote have finished voting, shall make a canvass and prepare a statement of the result thereof, transmitting such result by telegraph, at six o’clock in the evening of the day of the voting, or as soon after the canvass as possible, to the municipal treasurer of the corresponding municipality, to the provincial treasurer and to the Secretary of the Interior, so that it may be included in the final computation of the votes, and at the same time he shall send to said officers certified copies of the statement by rush and registered mail.”
The explicit purpose of the requirements that the statement of the result shall be transmitted by telegraph to the municipal treasurer, the provincial treasurer and the Secretary of the Interior is to have such result “included in the final computation of the votes.” This final computation can mean no other than the computation lastly made by the board of canvassers, and not merely the computation made by the board of inspectors in the only precinct or precinct No. 1 of a given municipality. This construction is supported by the requirement that, aside from the telegraphic notice provided by the first paragraph of section 12, the officer conducting the voting in a leprosarium is also required to send to the municipal treasurer, the provincial treasurer and the Secretary of the Interior certified copies of the statement of election by rush and registered mail. If said “final computation” was really intended to refer to the canvass of the votes made by the board of inspectors, the provision in the first paragraph of section 12 requiring the sending of certified copies of the statement of election by rush and registered mail would be superfluous, inas- much as the inclusion of the votes cast in a leprosarium in the canvass made by the board of inspectors is conditioned upon the receipt by said board of a certified copy of a telegraphic notice before the result of its canvass is proclaimed. The first and second paragraphs of section 12 of the Election Code should be harmonized and given an interpretation which would carry into effect the evident legislative purpose. In case a certified copy of the telegraphic notice referred to in the first paragraph is received by the board of inspectors of the only election precinct or precinct No. 1 of the municipality before the result of its canvass is proclaimed, the said board shall include in its canvass the votes set forth in the telegram, and said votes will naturally be included in the final computation of the votes by the board of canvassers. In case such telegraphic notice is not received by the board of inspectors on time, the votes set forth in the telegraphic notice can not of course be included in its canvass, but where, as in the present case, at the board of canvassers’ meeting for the purpose, it was furnished not only the telegram but also with the statement of election received by the municipal treasurer from the judicial officer that :ducted the election in the leprosarium, said votes should be included in the final computation of the votes. There is certainly weight in the statement contained in the decision of the respondent judge that the law could not have intended to condition the right of a leper to vote upon the timely receipt by the board of inspectors in the only election precinct of a municipality of a telegraphic notice.
The petitioner contends that the respondent judge erred in ordering the inclusion of the vote cast in the San Lazaro Leprosarium for Prudencio S. del Rosario because said vote is illegal on the ground that the person who cast it was not a voter duly registered in the electoral census of precinct No. 1 of San Mateo. The question thus propounded is not a proper subject of inquiry in the proceedings instituted by Prudencio S. del Rosario in the Court of First Instance of Rizal, civil case No. 7937, for the reason that, as stated in Dizon vs. Provincial Board of Canvassers of Laguna, 52 Phil., 47, 57-58, quoting 9 Ruling Case Law, p. 1110:
“The board of official canvassers to whom the boards of election of the several divisions return their certificate showing the number of votes cast for each candidate, is liable to err in overestimating its powers. Whenever it is suggested that illegal votes have been received or that there were other fraudulent practices at the election, it is apt to imagine that it is its duty to inquire into these alleged frauds and to decide on the legality of the votes. Its duty, however, is almost wholly ministerial to take the returns as made from the different voting precincts, add them up, and declare the result. Questions of illegal voting and fraudulent practices are passed on by another tribunal. The canvassers are to be satisfied of the genuineness of the returns, that is, that the papers presented to them are not forged and spurious, that they are returns, and are signed by the proper officers; but when so satisfied they may not reject any returns because of in- formalities in them or because of illegal and fraudulent practices in the elections. The simple purpose and duty of the canvassing board is to ascertain and declare the apparent result of the voting. All other questions are to be tried before the court or other tribunal for contesting elections or in quo warranto proceedings.”
The principle above expressed finds expression in section 162 of the Election Code which provides, among other things, that the “municipal board of canvassers shall not recount the ballots nor examine any of them, but shall proceed upon the statement presented to it.”
In the instant case it appears that at the meeting of the municipal board of canvassers for San Mateo held on December 14, 1940, for the purpose of canvassing the returns for the said municipality, the said board failed to include in its canvass the vote cast in the San Lazaro Leprosarium for Prudencio S. del Rosario, which vote was duly accredited by the certificate of canvass then before the said board of canvassers and thereby defaulted in its ministerial duty (Dizon vs. Provincial Board of Canvassers of Laguna (supra) of counting “the votes cast for each municipal office” (section 162, Election Code). The mandamus proceedings instituted in the Court of First Instance of Rizal by Prudencio S. del Rosario against the municipal board of canvassers were approprriate, it being the better doctrine “that after canvassers have made one canvass, declared the result and adjourned they may be compelled by ‘mandamus’ to reassemble and make a correct canvass of all the returns where it appears that upon the first canvass they neglected or refused fully to perform their duties.” (Blaquesa vs. Municipal Council of Langangilang, et al., G. R. No. 16092, December 17, 1920, quoting 15 (Cyc, p. 379 et seq.)
Wherefore, affirming the judgment of the respondent judge, the present petition for certiorari will be, as the same is hereby, dismissed, without pronouncement regarding costs. So ordered.
Avancena, C. J., Imperial, Diaz, and Moran, JJ., concur.