[ G.R. No. L-1852. October 14, 1948 ] 81 Phil. 577
EN BANC
[ G.R. No. L-1852. October 14, 1948 ]
THE BOARD OF ELECTION INSPECTORS, PRECINCT NO. 8 OF TOLOSA, LEYTE, COMPOSED OF PABLO LIRIOS, ILUMINADA MARTINEZ, E. GALLARON AND TERESA CAHAYAG, FRANCISCO ARGUTA, AS MUNICIPAL TREASURER OF TOLOSA, LEYTE, THE MUNICIPAL BOARD OF CANVASSERS OF TOLOSA, LEYTE, COMPOSED OF ELPIDIO PALAÑA, SINFORIANA PICA, EMILIO SORIA, PEREGRINO FUNDAVELA, EUGENIO PANSO AND MACARIO SABALZA, AND LUIS C. TRINCHERA, PETITIONERS, VS. EDMUNDO S. PICCIO, JUDGE OF THE FIRST INSTANCE OF LEYTE AT TACLOBAN, AND CESARIO R. COLASITO, RESPONDENTS. D E C I S I O N
PERFECTO, J.:
On November 15, 1947, Cesareo R. Colasito, candidate for mayor of Tolosa, Leyte, filed with the Court of First Instance of Leyte, a petition, in pursuance of Sections 163 and 168 of the Revised Election Code, for the recounting of the votes cast in Precinct No. 8 of Tolosa, in view of contradictory official statements issued by the Board Election Inspectors as to the votes cast for the candidates for mayor, the conflict affecting the result of the Elections.
Colasito alleged:
That on or about November 12, 1947, and immediately After making a statement of the counting of the result of the elections, the board of election inspectors issued a certificate showing the number of votes polled by the candidates for mayor as follows:
Cesareo R. Colasito
112
Luis C. Trinchera
92
That, counting the above votes with those of the nine other precincts of Tolosa, he would win by majority of 38 votes as follows:
Cesareo R. Colasito
1030
Luis C. Trinchera
992
That, instead of filing the statement made immediately Aftfter the counting, the board of election inspectors submitted another; return which would give Luis C. Trinchera the majority, by crediting him 50 votes more than actually cast in his favor and subtracting 50 from those polled by petitioner Colasito as follows:
Cesareo R. Colasito
62 instead of 112
Luis C. Trinchera
142 instead of 92
Accordingly, the lower court issued on November 26 an order for the recounting of the votes cast in precinct No. 8 of Tolosa, the recounting to be made by the board of election inspectors under the supervision of the clerk of court, the board to certify in writing the result of the recounting, and the certification to be submitted by the municipal treasurer to the municipal council as municipal board of canvassers.
The board of election inspectors of precinct No. 8 of Tolosa, joined by Francisco Arguta, municipal treasurer of Tolosa as members of the municipal board of canvassers, and Luis C. Trinchera, filed a petition for a writ of prohibition asking this Court to prohibit respondent judge from enforcing its order for the recounting of the votes cast in precinct No. 8 of Tolosa.
The sole ground of the petition, as amply explained in the objection to the opening of the ballot boxes filed by petitioners with the lower court on November 26, 1947, Appendix B of the petition, is that the certificate issued by the poll inspectors after the counting on November 12, attesting to the fact that Colasito obtained 112 votes and Trinchera 92, is not one of the statements contemplated by Sections 163 and 168 of the Revised Election Code.
Neither in their objection of November 26, 1947, nor in the petition before us, have petitioners attempted to challenge the serious charge of falsification of the election returns filed with the municipal treasurer They do not dispute the authenticity of the certificate. They do not dispute the contradiction between the authentic certification and the allegedly falsified election returns. They do not dispute the fact that, under the authentic certificate, Cesareo R. Colastico appears to be the mayor elected by the people. They do not dispute that through the election returns challenged in the lower court as false, the choice of the people appears to be supplanted by Luis G. Trinchera, the one repudiated by the people.
To stop the recounting of votes that would reveal and frustrate a supposed election fraud, petitioners would only resort to a legal technicality premised on a clumsy misinterpretation of the meaning of words.
The certificate in question is one of the official statements required by law to be issued by the poll inspectors immediately after counting, and it is so specifically provided by Section 155 of the Revised Election Code. The next section, 154, provides that after the announcement of the result of the elections in the polling place, the board of inspectors is not to make any alteration or amendment “in any of its statements” unless it be so ordered by a competent court. It is significant that the words “in any of its statements” are used in the section immediately following the section providing for the issuance of certificate of the number ©f votes polled by the candidates.
No amount of logodaedaly may conceal the fact that a certificate is a statement issued for some specific purpose may be following a form or issued with some solemnity, but comprehended within the meaning of the ward statement.
A certificate is a “certified statement” or “a written declaration legally authenticated.” It is a certification which is but a “certified statement.” (Webster’s New International Dictionary). The word came from the Latin word certificatus, past participle of certificare, and moans “made certain.”
“Statement” is act of stating, reciting, or presenting verbally or on paper. Harrison vs. State 147 N. E., 650, 654. (40 Words and Phrases, Perm. ed. p. 37.)
Statement. Webster defines the word as the act of stating, reciting, or presenting, verbally or on paper. See Montague vs. Thomason, 91 Tenn. 158, 173. (Ballentine, Law Dictionary p. 1229.)
Certificate. A writing by which testimony is given that a fact has or has not taken place.
* * * * * * *
By statute, the certificate of various officers may be made evidence, in which case the effect cannot be extended by including facts other than those authorized, * * * (1 Bouvier’s Law Dictionary, p. 442.)
A certificate is a declaration in writing. Ticonic Bank vs. Stackpole, 41 Me. 302, 305.
The term “certificate” imports the statement of some fact in writing signed by the party certifying. Nowell vs. Mayor and Council of Monroe, 171 S. E., 136, 141.)
A “certificate” is “a writing giving assurance that a thing has or has not been done; * * * that a fact exists or does not exist.” Cook vs. Ziff Colored Masonic Lodge No. 119, 96 S. W., 618, 620.
The “written statement” mentioned in Township Organization Act, article 7 sec. 7, Smith-Hurd Stats, c. 139 section 66, requiring the Judges of an election to make a written statement or certificate of the number of votes cast, is equivalent in meaning to the word “certificate” as used in the act. The term does not include a written statement not signed by the judges of election. (People vs. Nordheim, 99 Ill. 553, 560. 6 Words and Phrases, Perm. ed. p. 427.)"
That the contradictory statements or copies thereof mentioned in Sections 163 and 168 of the Revised Election Code the certificate in question can rightly be seen from the fact that according to section 152, only one copy of the election returns of each precinct is filed with the municipal treasurer. No one should believe that the lawmakers had contemplated difference of votes in other authentic copies “of statements” or “copies of the same statements,” when the municipal treasurer cannot submit to the municipal board of canvassers more than one copy of the election returns. Undoubtedly, the other copies referred to are the certificates in question, as they arc in fact copies of what the poll inspectors have written in the return prepared and signed immediately after the counting, in the presence of all watchers and the public, before whom the results are announced viva voce, while everybody may check if the announcement tallies or not with the figures written on the blackboard.
Even on the wrong hypothesis that there should be a doubt as to whether the statements mentioned in Sections 163 and 168 of the Revised Election Cede may also include the certificates mentioned by Section 153, the doubt should be resolved in favor of the unmistakable intention of the lawmakers that any conflict between the several statements and certificates issued by the same board of election inspectors as to the result of the election regarding municipal and provincial positions should be right away threshed out by the summary procedure of the judicial recounting of the votes, which will take a small fraction of the day. The purpose of the law is to offer a prompt relief to a simple controversy that can immediately be settled through a summary judicial proceeding that may dispense with the long drawn and complicated proceedings of a full-dressed electoral contest and, at the same time, by the use of a simple and effective expedient, to restore public tranquillity by dispelling all doubts as to the true number of votes cast in a given precinct. Legal technicalities should be used to help in arriving at a clear intention of the law and not to defeat said intention. Upon the facts alleged by Colasito in the lower court, it can bo gathered that on November 12, 1947, Immediately upon tho counting, the board of election inspectors issued a certificate of the number of votes polled by tho candidates for mayor, and the numbers appearing in the certificate tallied with the numbers written on the blackboard and with the written statements in quadruplicate required by Section 150 of the Revised Election Code, The presumption is that the certificate issued res gestae cantained the truth. Being in conflict with the election returns filed with the municipal treasurer, the one filed must be presumed to have been prepared in substitution of the genuine one, originally signed at the polling place immediately after the counting, which must have been withheld, concealed, or destroyed. Under the circumstances, the certificate has taken the place, of said original;election returns and, like the latter, cannot fail to be described also as a statement. Therefore, from the narrow and mistaken point of view of petitioners, the contradiction between the authentic statement, the res gestae certificate and the one filed with the municipal treasurer and challeged by respondent Colasito as falsified, is an undisputable for the recounting of votes for determine the true vote polled by each candidate and exhibiting the best evidence as to the truth of facts and as to whether fraud falsification have been committed or not.
Under Section 157 of the Revised Election Code, the ballot boxes are Fubject to any official investigation which may be ordered by a competent court or other authority. In the present ougc there is an indication that a criminal falsification might have been committed to defeat the will of the people and which is ground for starting criminal proceedings. Public interest demands Immediate recounting of the votes in question and no delay should bo entertained. It is absolutely necessary that, before it is too late, the choice of the people be not supplanted by an impostor and that the ones criminally responsible for the fraudulent falsification be not allowed to get away with their crime. Those tampering with elections are among the worst offenders. They are number one enemies of democracy.
Petition denied.
Feria and Briones, JJ., concur.