GR 133676; (April, 1999) (Digest)
G.R. No. 133676 , April 14, 1999
TUPAY T. LOONG, petitioner, vs. COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS and ABDUSAKUR TAN, respondents. YUSOP JIKIRI, intervenor.
FACTS
The 1998 elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) utilized the new automated system under R.A. No. 8436 . In Sulu, the automated counting at Sulu State College encountered critical problems. For the municipality of Pata, the machines failed to correctly read ballots due to a misalignment of the ovals printed opposite candidates’ names, causing votes for certain mayoralty candidates to be unreflected in the printed election returns. COMELEC Task Force Head Atty. Jose Tolentino, Jr. suspended Pata’s automated count. Reports later indicated similar ballot rejection issues in five other Sulu municipalities due to incorrect sequence codes.
Respondent Abdusakur Tan petitioned COMELEC to suspend automated counting province-wide. After an emergency meeting with candidates and security officials yielded no consensus, Atty. Tolentino recommended a manual count for the entire province. Initially, the COMELEC en banc issued Minute Resolution No. 98-1747 ordering a manual count only for Pata. However, following Tolentino’s detailed report, COMELEC subsequently issued Resolution Nos. 98-1748 and 98-1750, expanding the manual count to all municipalities in Sulu. Petitioner Tupay Loong and intervenor Yusop Jikiri challenged these resolutions.
ISSUE
Did the COMELEC commit grave abuse of discretion in ordering a province-wide manual count of ballots for Sulu?
RULING
No. The Supreme Court upheld the COMELEC’s resolutions, finding no grave abuse of discretion. The Court emphasized COMELEC’s broad constitutional mandate to enforce and administer all election laws, which necessarily includes the power to adopt ancillary measures to ensure free, orderly, and honest elections. Faced with a systemic failure of the automated machines to accurately read ballots due to printing errors—a failure not attributable to the machines themselves but to the ballot preparation—COMELEC had to act to protect the integrity of the electoral process and the sovereign will of the electorate.
The legal logic rests on the principle that COMELEC possesses wide latitude of discretion in choosing the appropriate means to achieve clean elections. The shift to manual counting was a corrective measure necessitated by the factual finding that the automated system could not faithfully reflect the votes cast. This was a practical and logical solution to an unforeseen technical breakdown. The Court ruled that where the chosen method is not clearly illegal and is directly aimed at ascertaining the true results, COMELEC’s exercise of discretion should not be interfered with. The manual count was the only viable alternative to remedy the widespread technical failure and give effect to the voters’ intent.