EN BANC
G.R. No. L-31501 June 30, 1970
DATU BLAH SINSUAT, petitioner,
vs.
SALIPADA K. PENDATUN, COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS, and THE PROVINCIAL BOARD OF CANVASSERS OF COTABATO, respondents.
Jose W. Diokno for petitioner.
Salonga, Ordoñez, Yap, Sicat and Associates for respondent Pendatun.
Separate Opinions
TEEHANKEE, J., dissenting:
I concur with the extensive concurring and dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Barredo, and wish to add the following brief comments on the inapplicability of the Lagumbay case:
1. To my mind, the application by the majority of the Lagumbay dictum does not square with the consistent pronouncements of the Court in all subsequently decided cases admonishing boards of canvassers to proceed with extreme caution in rejecting returns as "obviously manufactured" because of statistical improbability and to view the doctrine restrictively so as not to result in the disenfranchisement of innocent voters.
The Court reiterated this restrictive view in two cases decided this year.
In Ilarde vs. Comelec1 it pointed out that "(T)he thrust of all the subsequent cases is to restrict the doctrine of the Lagumbay case to the unique uniformity of tally in favor of candidates belonging to one party and the systematic blanking of the opposing candidates in the same locality, such as to make the fraud 'palpable from the return itself ... (and) there is no reason to accept it and give it prima facie value, and leading to no other reasonable conclusion than that the returns were obviously manufactured because to were as 'utterly improbable and clearly incredible' as 'to win the sweepstakes ten times.ℒαwρhi৷'" In Lucman vs. Dimaporo2the Court cited the "peculiar situation" of the fifty returns ordered excluded from the canvass in Lagumbay as "utterly improbable and clearly incredible." It should be noted that this was not strictly an issue of fact. Indeed, the main elements essential to its determination appeared on the face of the returns themselves. The dispute down to the proper conclusion to be drawn therefrom, and, hence, it partook of the nature of a question of law (cases cited). What is more, in the view of this Court, that conclusion was "clear, obvious, manifest and indubitable." The Court further explicitly ruled, in not applying therein the Lagumbay doctrine, that "unlike the condition of the returns involved in the Lagumbay case — which this Court considered incontestable — that existing as regards the returns for Balabagan is clearly a very controversial one, which the Commission has no power to decide with finality."
2. In Sangki vs. Comelec,3 the Court held that "a no vote for a particular candidate in election returns is but one strand in the web of circumstantial evidence that those election returns are 'obviously manufactured.' In Lagumbay, that circumstancial evidence was overwhelming." There the Court declined to reject the returns from 18 precincts of Pagalungan and 11 precincts of Pikit, both of Northern Cotabato, showing that all the votes counted were in favor of Salipada K. Pendatun (then a candidate for governor) while reporting zero votes for his opponent, because inter alia, affidavits of the opposing party's inspectors explaining why they did not vote for their party's candidate were submitted by Pendatun. The Court ruled that the averments of the inspectors' affidavits "reduced this particular point to a question of fact," which could only be resolved by the corresponding protest in the proper forum.
3. In the case at bar, affidavits of respondent Pendatun's party inspectors and of the poll chairman and clerks explaining the zero vote for Pendatun as against 4,346 votes for petitioner Sinsuat in the questioned precincts, principally of Upi, his hometown,4 which stand unrebutted, were this time presented by his opponent, petitioner herein. This must be counter-balanced as against the fact of respondent Pendatun having received all the 5,809 votes cast in the 35 precincts of Pagalungan, his hometown, as against zero vote for petitioner5 (in the same manner that he garnered all the votes therein against zero vote for his opponents in the 1961, 1965 and 1967 elections.)6 The point is that against such a factual background dealing with hometown votes, any conclusion of statistical improbability on the basis of the Lagumbay doctrine becomes clearly inapt, because the results shown by the returns cannot be said to be "utterly improbable and clearly incredible" and a conclusion of their being "obviously manufactured" because of statistical improbability cannot be considered "indubitable and incontestable." Whether by design or otherwise, the other candidates of the opponent's ticket are systematically blanked or given a few stray votes becomes of no legal significance for purposes of the Lagumbay dictum, because the issue becomes a very controversial one of fact, which rule out the summary employment of statistical improbabilities and which is beyond the Comelec's power to decide with finality.
As held by the Court in Estrada vs. Navarro,7in canvass proceedings, "(A)ny plausible explanation, one which is acceptable to a reasonable man in the light of experience and of the probabilities of the situation, should suffice to avoid outright nullification, with the resulting disfranchisement of those who exercised their right of suffrage."
Footnotes
1 L-31446, Jan. 23, 1970, emphasis supplied.
2 L-31558, May 29, 1970, emphasis copied.
3 L-28359, Dec. 26, 1967, 21 SCRA 1392.
4 Comelec Resolution, Annex H, p. 9.
5 Annex E, Memorandum of Data.
6 Annex I, respondent's Counter-Memorandum.
7 L-28340 and L-28374, Dec. 29, 1967, 21 SCRA 1514.
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