G.R. No. 86117 , May 7, 1990
Dimangadap Dipatuan, petitioner, vs. The Commission on Elections, Aleem Hosain Amanoddin, et al., respondents.

FACTS

Petitioner Dimangadap Dipatuan and private respondent Aleem Hosain Amanoddin were candidates for Mayor of Bacolod Grande, Lanao del Sur, in the 1988 special elections. Initial canvassing by two different Municipal Boards of Canvassers led to conflicting proclamations, both of which were later set aside by the COMELEC En Banc as invalid. Consequently, a COMELEC-convened Special Board of Canvassers was tasked with a recanvass. During this recanvass, petitioner objected to the inclusion of election returns from Precincts Nos. 15 and 17, alleging they were “spurious and manufactured” under Section 243(c) of the Omnibus Election Code, thus raising a pre-proclamation controversy. He cited irregularities including voters signing in perfect alphabetical order, alleged sudden literacy among previously illiterate voters, discrepancies in signatures, and voting by veiled persons without proper identification.
The Special Board denied the objections and included the returns. The COMELEC Second Division and later the COMELEC En Banc sustained this action, dismissing petitioner’s appeal. They ruled the returns were not “obviously manufactured” and that petitioner’s proper remedy was a regular election protest. Petitioner then filed this certiorari petition, although private respondent Amanoddin had already been proclaimed Mayor by the Special Board on December 28, 1988, pursuant to the COMELEC’s affirmed decision.

ISSUE

Whether the COMELEC committed grave abuse of discretion in ruling that the election returns from Precincts Nos. 15 and 17 were not “obviously manufactured,” thereby holding that no pre-proclamation controversy existed and that inclusion of the returns in the canvass was proper.

RULING

The Supreme Court dismissed the petition, finding no grave abuse of discretion by the COMELEC. The legal logic centers on the limited scope of pre-proclamation controversies and the summary nature of the canvass proceeding. The Court emphasized that for an election return to be excluded as “obviously manufactured,” the defect must be apparent on the face of the return itself or from a comparison with other authentic returns from the same precinct. The alleged irregularities raised by petitioner—such as alphabetical voting, signature discrepancies, and issues of voter literacy and identification—require the meticulous examination of extrinsic evidence like voting records, voter’s affidavits, and witness testimonies. This type of detailed, factual inquiry is inappropriate for a summary pre-proclamation proceeding; it is the proper subject of a regular election protest where evidence can be fully ventilated and examined.
The Court upheld the COMELEC’s finding that the cited circumstances did not constitute the “patent and conclusive” evidence of fabrication required to nullify returns in a canvass. It noted that alphabetical voting, while unusual, is not impossible or illegal per se. Furthermore, the COMELEC correctly balanced the interest of not disenfranchising the majority of legitimate voters in those precincts against the alleged misdeeds of a few. The affidavits presented by petitioner were deemed insufficient, as they were not from independent witnesses and would necessitate the very type of protracted examination reserved for an election protest. Therefore, the COMELEC acted within its jurisdiction in ordering the inclusion of the returns and directing the proclamation, leaving the petitioner to pursue an election contest to challenge the validity of the votes.