G.R. No. L-20015; November 30, 1963
Sulpicio Gadon, protestant-appellant, vs. Pedro Gadon, protestee-appellant.

FACTS

This is an election protest concerning the 1959 mayoralty race in Despujols, Romblon. The municipal board of canvassers proclaimed Pedro Gadon the winner by a margin of three votes, with 642 votes against Sulpicio Gadon’s 639. Sulpicio filed an election protest, initially alleging fraud and irregularities in Precincts 2-A and 4. Pedro filed an answer with a counter-protest, contesting the results in Precincts 1, 2, 3, 3-A, 5, and 5-A. Sulpicio later filed an amended petition, with court permission, to include Precinct 3-A among those he was protesting. The trial court admitted this amendment over Pedro’s subsequent objection during the trial. After a revision of ballots, the trial court declared Sulpicio the winner by eleven votes. Both parties appealed, and the case was certified to the Supreme Court.

ISSUE

The primary issues were: (1) whether the trial court acquired jurisdiction over Precinct 3-A despite the amended petition being filed after the statutory period for filing a protest; and (2) the validity of specific contested ballots claimed by either party.

RULING

The Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s decision and declared protestee Pedro Gadon the winner. On the jurisdictional issue, the Court held that the trial court validly acquired jurisdiction over Precinct 3-A. While Sulpicio’s amended petition including that precinct was filed after the statutory period, Pedro’s own counter-protest had already placed the ballots from Precinct 3-A within the court’s cognizance. Once a counter-protest is filed, it opens all ballots in the contested precincts for the court’s examination, allowing the protestant to claim valid votes and object to invalid ones for the protestee therein. The original petition also contained sufficient jurisdictional allegations regarding fraud in the counting of votes.
On the review of ballots, the Court meticulously examined the contested ballots. Key rulings included: ballots where the protestee’s name “Pedro Gadon” was written as “P. Gadon” or with a discernible “P” were valid; the use of colloquial Visayan prefixes like “manoy” denoting respect did not invalidate ballots; and incomplete voting for certain positions (e.g., unfilled spaces for senators or councilors) did not, by itself, constitute a marking that would invalidate a ballot. The Court emphasized the principle of favoring the validity of ballots and avoiding disenfranchisement without the strongest evidence of an intent to mark the ballot for identification. After re-tabulating the valid votes for both parties based on these principles, the final tally showed Pedro Gadon received 641 valid votes against Sulpicio Gadon’s 630, resulting in an eleven-vote margin of victory for Pedro.