Source: http://lawlibrary.chanrobles.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=30473:g-r-no-86117-may-7,-1990-dimangadap-dipatuan-v-commission-on-elections,-et-al&catid=1263&Itemid=566
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 23:47:40+00:00

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DIMANGADAP DIPATUAN, Petitioner, v. THE COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS, ALEEM HOSAIN AMANODDIN, ALEEM ABBAS MOHAMMAD HABIB, HADJI SALIC IMAM, IBRA P. BALI, MAMENTAL NAGA, CADAR G. USMAN, MACAUNDAR AMEROL, ALI MANGANDA, HOSARI ALOYOD, YUNOS MALIK, Respondents.
Pedro Q. Quadra for Petitioner.
Ariraya P. Corot, Linang D. Mandangan, Mangorsi A. Mindalano and Tingaraan Bangkero for Private Respondents.
4.	ID.; PROPER PROCEDURE FOR ILLITERATE VOTERS; NOT SPECIFICALLY SET OUT BY LAW. — Petitioner’s complaints about supposed irregularities involving illiterate voters appear to assume that it is improper or unlawful for a third person — e.g., the assistor who had helped the illiterate to cast his vote — to write the name of the assisted illiterate in the voting record. As the Comelec pointed out, however, the proper procedure for indicating that illiterate voters have cast their votes has not been specifically set out in the Omnibus Election Code: "2. The citation of signatures of alleged illiterate voters is not clear. For the procedure that the Board of Election Inspectors followed with respect to them is not established. The law itself is not too clear as to how it is to record the fact that an illiterate voter actually votes, i e., to do so by thumbmarking the voting record, or to allow the assistor to sign the name of the illiterate voter. Sec. 196, B.P. Blg. 881. Again, the evidence is ambiguous and we are bound by law to presume regularity. In addition, it must be pointed out that the illiterate voters in the two questioned precincts are outnumbered by literate voters whose valid votes will be invalidated by the setting aside of the returns. The disenfranchisement of voters through the misdeeds of a few should be avoided. Grand Alliance for Democracy v. Commission on Elections, supra."
Petitioner Dipatuan and private respondent Aleem Hosain Amanoddin were candidates for Mayor of Bacolod Grande in the 1 February 1988 special local elections in Lanao del Sur. The other private respondents were candidates for Vice-Mayor and Councilors in the same municipality.
On 21 February 1988, the Municipal Board of Canvassers of Bacolod Grande, chaired by Samuel Minalang, finished canvassing the votes but did not proclaim the winning candidates. It did so on 29 February 1988, when private respondent Amanoddin was proclaimed winner and elected Mayor.
Earlier, on 25 February 1988, petitioner Dipatuan was proclaimed Mayor by a separate Board of Canvassers headed by one Mamacaog Manggray, after the said Board had excluded the election returns from Precincts Nos. 15, 17 and 21 from its canvass.
The Comelec En Banc set aside both (a) the proclamation made by the Minalang Board for being premature, the candidates not having been given the opportunity to appeal, and (b) the proclamation by the Manggray Board on the ground that the latter Board had not been properly constituted. A Special Board of Canvassers ("Special Board") was therefore convened in Manila by the Comelec to recanvass the election returns from Bacolod Grande, Lanao del Sur.
1.	In Precinct No. 15, of the 248 persons who actually voted, 187 arrived in the precinct and voted, according to the voting list, precisely in alphabetical and chronological order; of the 187 voters who voted in alphabetical and chronological order, 85 were illiterates as reflected in their respective voter’s affidavits, but had suddenly learned how to write their names in the voting list; many persons whose faces were covered by veils were allowed to vote without their identities being verified.
2.	In Precinct No. 17, 93 voters are listed as having voted in alphabetical and chronological order, i.e., in the precise sequence of their listing in the voting records: 45 illiterate voters suddenly learned to write their names in the voting records; many persons with their faces covered were allowed to vote without confirmation of their identities.
3.	In both Precincts Nos. 15 and 17, there were discrepancies between the signatures of voters appearing in the voter’s affidavits and the signatures appearing in the voting record; and members of the Boards of Election Inspectors falsified the voting records by making it appear that many or most of the registered voters had voted, when in fact they had not.
The Special Board denied petitioner’s objections and ordered the inclusion of the questioned returns from Precincts Nos. 15 and 17 in the canvass.
On appeal, the Comelec Second Division sustained the Special Board’s action, dismissed petitioner’s appeal and ordered the Special Board to proclaim the winning candidates. On 22 December 1988, the Comelec En Banc affirmed the decision of the Comelec Second Division and denied petitioner’s Motion for Reconsideration.
Hence the instant Petition for Certiorari, filed on 28 December 1988, with prayer for a writ of preliminary injunction or temporary restraining order to enjoin proclamation of private respondent Amanoddin as elected Mayor of Bacolod Grande.
The Court, acting on petitioner’s Motion to Annul Proclamation and/or Suspend Effects of Proclamation and on the Lanao del Sur Provincial Governor’s Urgent Request for Clarificatory Order, issued a Resolution on 2 February 1989 directing that, pending resolution on the merits of the instant Petition for Certiorari, private respondent Amanoddin, having been proclaimed Municipal Mayor on 28 December 1988, should be recognized as such Mayor and authorized to discharge the functions and duties of that office.
The central issue here posed is whether or not the questioned returns from Precincts Nos. 15 and 17 in the Municipality of Bacolod Grande, Province of Lanao del Sur, were "obviously manufactured" such that the propriety or legality of their inclusion in the canvass by the Special Board presented a pre-proclamation controversy to be resolved before proclamation of the winning candidates.
Both the Comelec Division and the Comelec En Banc, in sustaining the Special Board’s action ordering the inclusion of the questioned returns in the recanvass, held that the assailed returns were not "obviously manufactured" such that petitioner’s contentions had not generated a pre-proclamation controversy and that petitioner’s proper recourse was rather the bringing of an election contest where his contentions in respect of the assailed returns could be properly ventilated and examined in detail.
(c)	The election returns were prepared under duress, threats, coercion, or intimidation, or they are obviously manufactured or not authentic; and . . ." (Emphasis supplied).
"That the padding of the List of Voters may constitute fraud, or that the Board of Election Inspectors may have fraudulently conspired in its preparation, would not be a valid basis for a pre-proclamation controversy either. For, whenever irregularities, such as fraud, are asserted, the proper course of action is an election protest.
We must conclude that petitioner has not shown any grave abuse of discretion or any act without or in excess of jurisdiction on part of the Comelec in rendering the decisions dated 8 November 1988 and 22 December 1988.
WHEREFORE, this Petition for Certiorari is hereby DISMISSED. No pronouncement as to costs.
Fernan, C.J., Narvasa, Melencio-Herrera, Gutierrez, Jr., Cruz, Paras, Padilla, Bidin, Sarmiento, Cortes, Griño-Aquino, Medialdea and Regalado, JJ., concur.
1.	Grand Alliance for Democracy v. Commission on Elections, 150 SCRA 665 (1987); Sanchez v. Commission on Elections, 153 SCRA 67 (1987).
2.	Section 245, Omnibus Election Code; Pausing v. Yorac, Et Al., G.R. No. 82700, 4 August 1988; Endique v. Commission on Elections, G.R. Nos. 82020-21, 22 November 1988.
3.	Section 246, Omnibus Election Code; Espaldon v. Commission on Elections, G.R. No. 78987, 25 August 1987; Pasion v. Commission on Elections, 109 SCRA 238 (1981); Bautista v. Commission on Elections, G.R. No. 78994, 10 March 1988.
4.	22 SCRA 878, 884-886 (1968).
5.	G.R. Nos. 84843-44, 22 January 1990.
7.	Rollo, p. 61; Italics supplied.
8.	As quoted in the Comment of Private Respondents dated 9 February 1989 in G.R No. 86117, p. 14; emphasis in the original.
9.	Comment of Private Respondent, p. 14.
10.	Section 196, Omnibus Election Code expressly provides for assistance to a voter who is illiterate or physically unable to prepare his ballot by himself, by a relative by affinity or consanguinity within the 4th civil degree, or by a person of his confidence belonging to the same household, or by a member of the Board of Election Inspectors.
11.	Rollo, p. 62; Italics supplied.
12.	140 SCRA 126 (1987).
13.	G.R. No. 79712, 12 November 1987.

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