GR 122013; (March, 1997) (Digest)
G.R. No. 122013, March 26, 1997
JOSE C. RAMIREZ, petitioner, vs. COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS, MUNICIPAL BOARD OF CANVASSERS OF GIPORLOS, EASTERN SAMAR AND ALFREDO I. GO, respondents.
FACTS
Petitioner Jose C. Ramirez and private respondent Alfredo I. Go were candidates for vice mayor of Giporlos, Eastern Samar in the May 8, 1995 elections. The Municipal Board of Canvassers (MBC) proclaimed Ramirez the winner, crediting him with 1,367 votes against Go’s 1,235 votes. Go filed a petition with the COMELEC for correction of manifest error in the Statement of Votes, alleging that due to an error in addition, his votes were under-tallied. He claimed the correct total was 1,515 votes, which would make him the winner.
Ramirez countered that the error was not in the addition but in the transposition of figures from the election returns to the Statement of Votes for several precincts. He asserted that the entries for those precincts in the Statement of Votes actually pertained to a mayoralty candidate, not to Go. He presented the Certificates of Votes from the Board of Election Inspectors to support his claim that the MBC’s original tally of 1,367 for him and 1,235 for Go was correct.
ISSUE
The primary issue is whether the COMELEC en banc committed grave abuse of discretion in ordering the MBC to reconvene and recompute the votes based solely on the contested Statement of Votes, without examining the election returns to correct the alleged clerical error.
RULING
The Supreme Court partially granted the petition. It held that the COMELEC en banc had jurisdiction to directly take cognizance of the petition for correction of manifest error under its procedural rules. However, the COMELEC committed grave abuse of discretion in its chosen remedy.
The legal logic is anchored on the hierarchy of election documents and the nature of the error. The COMELEC, citing Section 231 of the Omnibus Election Code, erroneously held that the Statement of Votes was the definitive basis for the proclamation and that the MBC could no longer question its own document. The Court clarified that a Statement of Votes is merely a tabulation of data taken from the election returns. Where a manifest clerical error in the Statement of Votes is alleged—such as a mistake in copying figures from the election returns—the proper recourse is to go back to the election returns, which are the primary and official records of the votes.
The COMELEC’s order for a mere recomputation based on the admittedly erroneous Statement of Votes was illogical and insufficient to ascertain the true will of the electorate. The correct procedure was to order a revision of the Statement of Votes by reconvening the MBC (or constituting a new one) and directing it to re-tabulate the results based on the original election returns from all precincts. The proclamation of Ramirez, being based on a potentially flawed document, was voidable and did not preclude the COMELEC from ordering such a correction. The Court thus annulled the COMELEC resolutions and directed the constitution of a board to revise the Statement of Votes using the election returns.