G.R. No. 170070 - Delos Reyes vs. Commission on Elections

The case involves the contest for the position of Barangay Chairman of Barangay 414, Zone 42, District 4, Manila, held during the July 15, 2002 Barangay Elections.
The two main contestants were Cornelio Delos Reyes and Romeo H. Vasquez.
Initial canvassing of votes proclaimed Vasquez as the winner with 181 votes compared to Delos Reyes’s 32 votes.

Delos Reyes filed a Petition for Recount with the Metropolitan Trial Court (MeTC) alleging that several votes in his favor were erroneously assigned to Vasquez.
He further claimed that Vasquez employed threat and intimidation tactics against his watchers to effectuate election irregularities.
A Revision Committee, composed of representatives from both parties and chaired by the MeTC Branch Clerk of Court, was set up to conduct a physical recount.
During the recount, it was observed that two of the three ballot boxes from the disputed precincts had padlocks to which none of the three keys supplied by the COMELEC fitted, though other physical aspects appeared normal.
The Committee’s physical recount produced detailed vote counts in the various precincts, with Delos Reyes reportedly obtaining 113 votes and Vasquez 100 votes, notwithstanding subsequent objections by both parties to sets of ballots.

Despite contested ballots—with Vasquez objecting to 106 ballots containing votes for Delos Reyes and Delos Reyes objecting to 67 ballots with votes for Vasquez—the MeTC dismissed the objections.
On October 15, 2002, the MeTC rendered a Decision declaring Delos Reyes the winner based on the contest results from the physical recount, having accepted all contested ballots without invalidation.

Vasquez appealed to the Commission on Elections (COMELEC), challenging the MeTC ruling on several grounds including the alleged absence of evidence regarding vote tampering and the proper tallying of votes.
On October 25, 2004, the COMELEC Second Division reversed the MeTC’s Decision by:

Invalidating a specific set of ballots—forty-four ballots with Delos Reyes’s votes (identified by various exhibits) and one ballot with a vote for Vasquez—on the ground that they were written by one person.
Recalculating the vote count to arrive at 69 valid votes for Delos Reyes and 99 for Vasquez, thus declaring Vasquez the winner.

Delos Reyes's subsequent Motion for Reconsideration was denied by the COMELEC En Banc on September 30, 2005.

Delos Reyes filed a Petition for Certiorari assailing both the October 25, 2004 COMELEC Resolution and the COMELEC En Banc Resolution for:

Reliance on a unidimensional examination of handwriting differences on ballots.
The sweeping invalidation of forty-five (actually, forty-four valid ones as discussed) ballots without duly considering evidence establishing that the ballots might have been prepared under assisted voting conditions.

The petitioner argued that the COMELEC failed to consult the Minutes of Voting or the Computerized Voter’s List, which are crucial for determining whether assisted voting was properly exercised, thereby rendering its invalidation incomplete and arbitrary.

Whether the COMELEC erred in declaring the contested ballots invalid solely on the basis of a general appearance of similarity in handwriting without a detailed analysis of individual characteristics.

The issue centers on whether the abstraction of “written by one person” was sufficiently established to invalidate the ballots.
It questions if proper comparisons were made to determine whether the ballots were indeed prepared by a single hand or by an authorized assistor under the assisted voting scheme.

Whether the COMELEC’s reliance solely on the ballots—while omitting a cross-verification with the Minutes of Voting or the Computerized Voter’s List—amounted to a grave abuse of discretion.

This raises the issue of whether the failure to account for records evidencing the participation of assistors in the voting process led to an incomplete and erroneous vote evaluation.

Whether the actions of the COMELEC, in invalidating a substantial number of ballots, violated the fundamental principle that every ballot is presumed valid unless there is clear and compelling evidence to the contrary.