G.R. No. 144491 . February 6, 2001
Jaime T. Torres, petitioner, vs. House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal and Ninfa Garin, respondents.

FACTS

Petitioner Jaime T. Torres and private respondent Ninfa S. Garin were candidates for the congressional seat of the First District of Iloilo in the May 11, 1998 elections. Garin was proclaimed the winner with a margin of 1,404 votes. Torres filed an election protest before the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET), questioning the results in all precincts of the district. Garin filed an Answer with a Counter-Protest. The parties designated their respective 25% pilot precincts. Revision of the ballots in these pilot precincts showed a decrease in votes for both candidates, but Garin’s lead was obliterated in the physical count.
However, the HRET found that the official ballots in 23 precincts of Miag-ao had been tampered with, as authentic ballots were replaced by fake ones. Consequently, the Tribunal ruled that the revision results from these 23 precincts could not be relied upon to reflect the true will of the electorate. For these specific precincts, the HRET, in determining Garin’s votes, relied on the election returns as the best evidence for the missing votes, while appreciating the validity of the ballots actually found during the physical count.

ISSUE

Whether the HRET committed grave abuse of discretion in dismissing the election protest based on its appreciation of evidence from the pilot precincts and its application of the best evidence rule to the tampered ballots.

RULING

The Supreme Court ruled that the HRET did not commit grave abuse of discretion. The Court emphasized that the HRET is the sole judge of all contests relating to the election, returns, and qualifications of House members, and its factual findings are generally binding and conclusive absent a clear showing of arbitrariness or jurisdictional error. The Tribunal’s determination that the ballots in the 23 Miag-ao precincts were spurious was a factual finding supported by evidence. Faced with the absence of genuine ballots due to tampering, the HRET correctly applied the best evidence rule by relying on the election returns to ascertain the votes for the missing ballots, as the returns are prima facie evidence of the election results.
Based on its appreciation of the evidence from the pilot precincts, including the adjusted count for the tampered precincts, the HRET found that Garin’s lead was reduced by only 29 votes. Applying the rule that a protest may be dismissed if the results from the pilot precincts do not show a substantial recovery sufficient to affect the outcome, the HRET’s dismissal of the entire protest was legally sound. The Supreme Court found no capricious, whimsical, or arbitrary exercise of judgment by the Tribunal that would constitute grave abuse of discretion warranting the issuance of the extraordinary writ of certiorari.