G.R. No. L-58512 July 23, 1985
MANUEL I. SANTOS, petitioner, vs. THE COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS and RICARDO J. RUFINO, respondents.

FACTS

Petitioner Manuel I. Santos and private respondent Ricardo J. Rufino were candidates for Mayor of Taytay, Rizal in the January 30, 1980 elections. Prior to the elections, the COMELEC disqualified Santos in PDC No. 66 on grounds of turncoatism. Santos appealed to the Supreme Court, which issued a restraining order, allowing his name to remain on the ballot. The elections proceeded, and Santos garnered 15,463 votes, the highest number, leading to his proclamation. Rufino received 11,137 votes. Rufino filed PPC No. 379, a petition for recanvass and annulment of proclamation, which was consolidated with the disqualification case.
On March 31, 1981, the Supreme Court affirmed Santos’s disqualification. Capitalizing on this, Rufino filed a Motion for Proclamation, arguing that Santos, being disqualified, was a non-candidate and his votes should be considered stray, making Rufino, as the candidate with the next highest votes, the rightful winner. The COMELEC, in its assailed Resolution of October 23, 1981, granted the motion. It revoked Santos’s proclamation, declared all votes for him as stray, and proclaimed Rufino as the duly elected Mayor.

ISSUE

Whether the COMELEC acted with grave abuse of discretion in proclaiming Ricardo J. Rufino as the duly elected Mayor after disqualifying Manuel I. Santos.

RULING

No, the COMELEC did not commit grave abuse of discretion. The Supreme Court, voting 8-6, upheld the COMELEC’s resolution. The legal logic centers on the statutory framework of Batas Pambansa Blg. 52, the governing law for the 1980 local elections. Section 6 of this law explicitly provides that any vote cast for a disqualified candidate “shall not be counted.” The Court interpreted this as a clear legislative command to treat such votes as stray. Consequently, with Santos’s disqualification affirmed, the 15,463 votes cast for him were legally void. This left Rufino, with 11,137 votes, as the sole eligible candidate with valid votes, thereby entitling him to the office.
The Court distinguished this case from the doctrine in Topacio v. Paredes and Luison v. Garcia, which held that the disqualification of a winning candidate does not entitle the second-placer to succeed, as those cases were decided under different statutory regimes without an equivalent stray vote provision. Here, the specific mandate of B.P. Blg. 52 controlled. The proclamation of Santos was correctly revoked as it was based on a canvass that included votes legally deemed non-existent. The COMELEC’s duty was to give effect to the statutory rule and proclaim the candidate with the highest number of valid votes, which was Rufino. Its action was a proper exercise of its jurisdiction and not arbitrary.