GR 121031; (March, 1997) (Digest)
G.R. No. 121031 March 26, 1997
ATTY. ROSAURO I. TORRES, petitioner, vs. COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS and VICENTE RAFAEL A. DE PERALTA, respondents.
FACTS
The Municipal Board of Canvassers of Tanza, Cavite, proclaimed Atty. Rosauro I. Torres as the fifth winning candidate for municipal councilor following the May 1995 elections. Two days later, the Board requested the COMELEC to correct a manifest error in the Statement of Votes. The Board explained that 934 votes intended for candidate Bernardo C. Dimaala were erroneously added to Torres’s total. This clerical mistake, if corrected, would show that Torres received only 11,121 votes, placing him tenth, while private respondent Vicente Rafael A. de Peralta, with 11,610 votes, would be the eighth winning councilor.
The COMELEC set the case for hearing. Torres argued that jurisdiction over vote correction after proclamation lay with the Regional Trial Court via an election protest. De Peralta sought the annulment of Torres’s proclamation. The COMELEC En Banc granted the Board’s request, ordered the correction, and directed the Board to reconvene and proclaim de Peralta as the eighth winning councilor, which it did. Torres petitioned the Supreme Court, challenging COMELEC’s jurisdiction and the Board’s authority to file the action motu proprio after proclamation.
ISSUE
Whether the COMELEC acted with jurisdiction in ordering the correction of a manifest clerical error in the Statement of Votes and annulling the subsequent proclamation, despite the proclamation having been made.
RULING
The Supreme Court ruled that the COMELEC acted within its jurisdiction. The power to correct manifest errors in the tabulation or tallying of results is administrative and persists even after a proclamation, when the validity of that proclamation is precisely in question. The error involved was a simple mathematical mistake in adding votes from the election returns to the Statement of Votes, a purely administrative function of the Board of Canvassers under COMELEC’s direct control and supervision.
The Court cited Section 7, Rule 27 of the COMELEC Rules of Procedure and its jurisprudence, particularly Duremdes v. COMELEC and Castromayor v. COMELEC. It held that a proclamation based on an erroneous Statement of Votes is null and void, as it is no proclamation at all. This scenario is distinct from a post-proclamation election contest, which deals with the validity of the votes themselves. Here, the correction did not require opening ballot boxes or examining ballots; it merely required the Board to rectify its own clerical error to reflect the true count from the election returns. Therefore, COMELEC correctly exercised its constitutional mandate to enforce election laws and ensure the will of the electorate is upheld. The petition was dismissed.