Case Digest (G.R. No. 211636)
Facts:
Ricardo L. Penson, Hans Christian M. Seneres, Rizalito L. David, and Baldomero C. Falcone v. Commission on Elections constituted as the National Board of Canvassers for Senators and Commission on Elections, G.R. No. 211636, September 28, 2021, the Supreme Court En Banc, Lopez, J., writing for the Court.Petitioners (Penson, Seneres, David, Falcone) filed a Petition for Certiorari under Rule 65 alleging grave abuse of discretion by the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) sitting en banc as the National Board of Canvassers (NBOC) for Senators in proclaiming the 12 winning senatorial candidates after the May 13, 2013 elections. The NBOC had issued NBOC Resolution No. 004‑13 dated May 18, 2013 (initial proclamation), NBOC Resolution No. 0010‑13 dated June 5, 2013 (official declaration), and Senatorial Canvass Report No. 17 dated June 5, 2013 showing final tallies and stating that remaining uncanvassed votes would not materially affect the results.
The factual and legal backdrop included Republic Act No. 8436 (1997) and its amendment by R.A. No. 9369 (2007), which authorized the use of an Automated Election System (AES) and mandated a Random Manual Audit (RMA) of one precinct per congressional district. For the 2013 elections the COMELEC, using an Automated Random Selection Program, selected 234 clustered precincts (one per legislative district) for RMA; however petitioners alleged only 212 RMA reports (90.6%) were processed and pointed to variances between the RMA/manual counts and the electronic tallies.
Petitioners identified five principal grievances: (1) premature partial proclamation despite questionable accuracy of canvassed returns (grounded on RMA variances and unprocessed sample precincts); (2) unlawful termination of canvass because the NBOC failed to disclose the total votes/uncanvassed votes it relied on when concluding remaining votes would not materially affect rankings; (3) failure to comply with authentication of electronically transmitted results (alleged lack of digital signatures per Section 30 of R.A. No. 8436 as amended); (4) disregard of the Technical Evaluation Committee (TEC) findings and recommendations (including claims of automated "dagdag‑bawas"); and (5) violations of constitutional transparency by not making public audit/conduct documents and TEC root‑cause analysis reports.
The Court required the COMELEC‑NBOC to comment. The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), representing COMELEC‑NBOC, defended the proclamations on procedural and substantive grounds: procedurally, it argued the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) has exclusive and original jurisdiction under Article VI, Section 17 of the 1987 Constitution over contests relating to the election, returns and qualifications of senators (thus petitioners had a plain, speedy and adequate remedy before the SET), and that Rule 65 is inapplicable; substantively, it maintained that RMA variances did not justify delaying proclamation under R.A. No. 9369, that the number of registered voters not included in Canvass Report No. 17 was only 58,597 (insufficient to affect rankings), that PCOS machines were capable of producing digitally‑signed transmissions (citing Capalla v. COMELEC), and that the NBOC complied with statutory RMA requirements and disclosure obligations.
On October 10, 2014, petitioners‑intervenors (Glenn A. Chong et al., represented by Martin B. Dino and VACC) filed a Petition‑in‑Intervention reiterating the main petition’s claims and adding challenges to the availability of the PCOS source code (Section 12, R.A. No. 9369) and alleged non‑compliance with authentication instructions to Board of Election Inspectors. They also relied on an RTC decision involving alleged PCOS anomalies (Civil Case No. 4378‑13, RTC Gapan City) to support claims of manipulation. The OSG replied that the COMELEC had made the source code available per its resolutions and ...(Pro-only)
Issues:
- Did petitioners have a plain, speedy and adequate remedy before the Senate Electoral Tribunal such that certiorari under Rule 65 was unavailable, and does the SET have exclusive jurisdiction over the claims?
- Did the COMELEC‑NBOC commit grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction in issuing NBOC Resolution No. 004‑13 (May 18, 2013), NBOC Resolution No. 0010‑13 and Senatorial Canvass Report No. 17 (both June 5, 201...(Pro-only)
Ruling:
- (Pro-only)
Ratio:
- (Pro-only)
Doctrine:
- (Pro-only)