Legarda vs De Castro, P.E.T.

Case 0003, March 31, 2005

Facts:
Loren B. Legarda filed an election protest against Noli L. de Castro before the Presidential
Electoral Tribunal (PET). De Castro filed a motion for its outright dismissal but the PET
confirmed its jurisdiction over the protest. De Castro filed a motion for reconsideration
assailing the PET resolution. He argues that where the correctness of the number of votes is the
issue, the best evidence are the ballots; that the process of correcting the manifest errors in the
certificates of canvass or election returns is a function of the canvassing bodies; that once the
canvassing bodies had done their functions, no alteration or correction of manifest errors can
be made; that since the authority of the Tribunal involves an exercise of judicial power to
determine the facts based on the evidence presented and to apply the law based on the
established facts, it cannot perform the ministerial function of canvassing election returns; that
the averments contained in the protest are mere conclusions of law which are inadequate to
form a valid cause of action; and that the allegations are not supported by facts. He also
contends that the Tribunal cannot correct the manifest errors on the statements of votes (SOV)
and certificates of canvass (COC).

Issues:

1. Can the PET correct the manifest errors in the SOV and COC?

2. Is there a need to resort to revision of ballots?

3. Was the election protest sufficient in form and substance?

Held:

1. The constitutional function as well as the power and the duty to be the sole judge of all
contests relating to the election, returns and qualification of the President and Vice-President is
expressly vested in the PET, in Section 4, Article VII of the Constitution. Included therein is the
duty to correct manifest errors in the SOVs and COCs.

2. We agree that the ballots are the best and most conclusive evidence in an election contest
where the correctness of the number of votes of each candidate is involved. However, we do
not find any reason to resort to revision in the first part of the protest, considering that
the protestant concedes the correctness of the ballot results, concerning the number of votes
obtained by both protestant and protestee, and reflected in the election returns. Protestant
merely seeks the correction of manifest errors, that is, errors in the process of different levels
of transposition and addition of votes. Revision of ballots in case of manifest errors, in these
circumstances, might only cause unwarranted delay in the proceedings.

3. In the instant protest, protestant enumerated all the provinces, municipalities and cities
where she questions all the results in all the precincts therein. The protest here is sufficient in
form and substantively, serious enough on its face to pose a challenge to protestee's title to his
office. The instant protest consists of alleged ultimate facts, not mere conclusions of law, that
need to be proven in due time.

Considering that we find the protest sufficient in form and substance, we must again stress
that nothing as yet has been proved as to the veracity of the allegations. The protest is only
sufficient for the Tribunal to proceed and give the protestant the opportunity to prove her
case pursuant to Rule 61 of the PET Rules. Although said rule only pertains to revision of
ballots, nothing herein prevents the Tribunal from allowing or including the correction of
manifest errors, pursuant to the Tribunals rule-making power under Section 4, Article VII of
the Constitution.

ATTY. ROMULO B. MACALINTAL, Petitioner, v. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTORAL TRIBUNAL,

Respondent.

NACHURA, J.:

FACTS:

Atty. Romulo B. Macalintal (Atty. Macalintal) files a petition before the SC, challenging the
constitutionality of Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) as an illegal and unauthorized progeny of
Section 4, Article VII of the Constitution, which provides: The Supreme Court, sitting en banc, shall be
the sole judge of all contests relating to the election, returns, and qualifications of the President or
Vice-President, and may promulgate its rules for the purpose. While petitioner concedes that the
Supreme Court is "authorized to promulgate its rules for the purpose," he chafes at the creation of a
purportedly "separate tribunal" complemented by a budget allocation, a seal, a set of personnel and
confidential employees, to effect the constitutional mandate.

ISSUEs:

1. Whether or not petitioner has locus standi?

2. Whether or not PET is unconstitutional

HELD: No. Petition Denied

POLITICAL LAW- The constitutional question must be raised at the earliest possible
opportunity

petitioners standing is still imperiled by the white elephant in the petition, i.e., his appearance as
counsel for former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (Macapagal-Arroyo) in the election protest
filed by 2004 presidential candidate Fernando Poe, Jr. before the Presidential Electoral Tribunal,
because judicial inquiry, as mentioned above, requires that the constitutional question be raised at
the earliest possible opportunity. Such appearance as counsel before the Tribunal, to our mind,
would have been the first opportunity to challenge the constitutionality of the Tribunals
constitution.

Petitioner is unmistakably estopped from assailing the jurisdiction of the PET before which tribunal
he had ubiquitously appeared and had acknowledged its jurisdiction in 2004. His failure to raise a
seasonable constitutional challenge at that time, coupled with his unconditional acceptance of the
Tribunals authority over the case he was defending, translates to the clear absence of an
indispensable requisite for the proper invocation of this Courts power of judicial review. Even on
this score alone, the petition ought to be dismissed outright.

POLITICAL LAW- The conferment of additional jurisdiction to the Supreme Court, with the
duty characterized as an "awesome" task, includes the means necessary to carry it into effect
under the doctrine of necessary implication.

A plain reading of Article VII, Section 4, paragraph 7, readily reveals a grant of authority to the
Supreme Court sitting en banc. In the same vein, although the method by which the Supreme Court
exercises this authority is not specified in the provision, the grant of power does not contain any
limitation on the Supreme Courts exercise thereof. The Supreme Court's method of deciding
presidential and vice-presidential election contests, through the PET, is actually a derivative of the
exercise of the prerogative conferred by the aforequoted constitutional provision. Thus, the
subsequent directive in the provision for the Supreme Court to "promulgate its rules for the
purpose."

The conferment of full authority to the Supreme Court, as a PET, is equivalent to the full authority
conferred upon the electoral tribunals of the Senate and the House of Representatives, i.e., the
Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) and the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET), which
we have affirmed on numerous occasions.

Republic Act No. 1793 has not created a new or separate court. It has merely conferred upon the
Supreme Court the functions of a Presidential Electoral Tribunal. The result of the enactment may
be likened to the fact that courts of first instance perform the functions of such ordinary courts of
first instance, those of court of land registration, those of probate courts, and those of courts of
juvenile and domestic relations. It is, also, comparable to the situation obtaining when the
municipal court of a provincial capital exercises its authority, pursuant to law, over a limited
number of cases which were previously within the exclusive jurisdiction of courts of first instance.

By the same token, the PET is not a separate and distinct entity from the Supreme Court, albeit it
has functions peculiar only to the Tribunal. It is obvious that the PET was constituted in
implementation of Section 4, Article VII of the Constitution, and it faithfully complies not unlawfully
defies the constitutional directive. The adoption of a separate seal, as well as the change in the
nomenclature of the Chief Justice and the Associate Justices into Chairman and Members of the
Tribunal, respectively, was designed simply to highlight the singularity and exclusivity of the
Tribunals functions as a special electoral court.
We have previously declared that the PET is not simply an agency to which Members of the Court
were designated. Once again, the PET, as intended by the framers of the Constitution, is to be an
institution independent, but not separate, from the judicial department, i.e., the Supreme Court.
DISMISSED