GR 33378; (November, 1971) (Digest)
G.R. No. L-33378. November 29, 1971. FELIX F. DIAZ, SR., petitioner, vs. THE COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS and JOHN K. S. DAOAS, respondents.
FACTS
Petitioner Felix Diaz, Sr. sought to review and set aside a COMELEC resolution dismissing his petition to amend and exclude all election returns from Sagada, Mountain Province, for the 1970 Constitutional Convention delegate elections. The canvass from all other municipalities showed William Claver leading with 5,001 votes, followed by Diaz with 3,433, Warren Luyaben with 3,306, and John Daoas with 3,291. However, the returns from Sagada’s 22 precincts dramatically reversed this, showing Daoas receiving 2,046 votes and Diaz only 71. Including Sagada’s votes would elect Daoas, while excluding them would elect Diaz by a 107-vote margin.
The COMELEC, after expert examination of precinct books and voter identification forms, found massive illegal voting. It determined that in many precincts, more substitute (non-registered) voters had voted than the actual registered voters themselves. While the COMELEC acknowledged this was symptomatic of a grievous, notorious pattern of election fraud in Sagada, it ultimately validated the returns from six precincts where a majority of voters were identified as registered. It dismissed the petition to exclude all returns, thereby including the tainted Sagada votes in the canvass, which would result in Daoas’s proclamation.
ISSUE
Whether the COMELEC committed a grave abuse of discretion in not excluding all election returns from the municipality of Sagada despite finding massive and systematic illegal voting.
RULING
Yes. The Supreme Court reversed the COMELEC resolution. The legal logic centers on the distinction between innocent irregularities and systematic, fraudulent manipulation that vitiates the entire electoral process. The Court held that while not every error or irregularity justifies nullifying returns, a finding of widespread, patterned fraud that fundamentally corrupts the expression of the popular will demands exclusion.
The COMELEC’s own factual findings established not mere sporadic lapses but a deliberate, large-scale scheme where non-registered persons voted in numbers exceeding legitimate voters in most precincts. This pattern, consistent with Sagada’s notorious history of election fraud, indicated the returns were manufactured or falsified, either through malice or coercion by the boards of inspectors. The Court emphasized that the election involved delegates to the Constitutional Convention, whose credentials must be unimpeachable. To tolerate returns so manifestly spurious would mock the right of suffrage and encourage fraud. Consequently, all returns from Sagada were deemed without probative value and ordered excluded from the canvass, as they did not reflect a true and valid expression of the electorate’s will.