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EN BANC
[G.R. No. 124137. March 25, 1997]
ROY M. LOYOLA, Petitioner, v. THE COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS, ROLANDO ROSAS and the REGIONAL TRIAL COURT, BRANCH 89, IMUS, CAVITE, Respondent.
D E C I S I O N
DAVIDE, JR., J.:
Is full payment of the required filing fee of P300 a
jurisdictional requirement in election protests? Stated otherwise, does incomplete payment of filing fee suffice,
provided the parties concerned pay the deficiency within the period fixed by
the court?
These are the questions that confront us in this special civil action for certiorari to set aside the 21 March 1996 Resolution1 of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) in SPR No. 4-96 entitled Roy M. Loyola vs. Rolando Rosas and Hon. Eduardo Israel Tanguangco.
The factual and procedural antecedents are related in the challenged Resolution as follows:
Gleaned from the records, it appears that on May 9, 1995, petitioner Roy M. Loyola was proclaimed by the Municipal Board of Canvassers as the duly elected Mayor of the municipality of Carmona, Cavite.
On May 19, 1995, an election protest was filed by herein private respondent Rolando Rosas before the Regional Trial Court, Branch 89 of Bacoor, Cavite, presided by Judge Eduardo Israel Tanguangco. The protest was docketed as EPC No. 95-1.
On 4 January 1996, petitioner Loyola (then protestee) filed a
Motion to Dismiss Protest on the ground that protestant (now private
respondent) failed to pay the filing fee of P300.00 at the time of the
filing of the protest.
He contended
that the failure of protestant to pay the correct amount of filing fee did not
vest jurisdiction on the court to take cognizance over the protest.
At this juncture, he cited the case of Gatchalian
vs. Court of Appeals, et al., G.R. No. 107979, June 19, 1995, to the effect
that it is the payment of the filing fee that vests jurisdiction upon the court
over the election protest.
In his opposition, private respondent posited the argument that the factual circumstances obtaining in the case of Gatchalian do not fall squarely with the present case as the latter involves non-payment of filing fee while the present case contemplates a situation where there was only an incomplete payment of filing fee.
In its order of January 17, 1996, the trial court resolved two (2) motions, namely: (1) protestees Motion to Dismiss Protest, and (2) protestants Motion for Additional Revision Day and/or Time and to Issue Appropriate Guidelines to Expedite the Revision Process. Accordingly, the court denied the Motion to Dismiss the protest for lack of merit holding that there was only an incomplete payment of the correct filing fee and that protestant, pursuant to the courts order, paid the correct amount on October 16, 1995. With respect to the private respondents motion, the court said: x x x, the parties are hereby adjured to direct their respective revisors to exert more efforts to finish the revision proceedings as soon as possible.
By virtue of the trial courts order, petitioner resorted to the instant Petition for Certiorari alleging grave abuse of discretion on the part of herein public respondent Judge in denying his Motion to Dismiss Protest.
On January 25, 1996, the Commission En Banc issued a Temporary Restraining Order against the respondent Judge directing him to cease and desist from further conducting revision of ballots and hearing Election Case No. 95-1 entitled Rosas vs. Loyola until further orders from the Commission.
On February 5, 1996, private respondent filed his answer alleging, among others, that the case is not a case of non-payment of filing fee but a clear case of incomplete payment of filing fee and not a ground for dismissing the election protest. He advanced the argument that both petitioner and private respondent have complied with the order of the respondent Judge to pay the balance of the correct amount of filing fee for petitioners counter-protest and for private respondents election protest.
The COMELEC held that the trial court acquired jurisdiction over the protest pursuant to this Courts ruling in Pahilan v. Tabalba,2 where there was merely incomplete payment of the filing fee. It disagreed with petitioners view that the applicable doctrine was that laid down in Gatchalian v. Court of Appeals,3 and ratiocinated as follows:
It cannot be gainsaid that private respondent Rolando Rosas paid
the amount of P268.00 on October 16, 1995 representing the balance of
the correct amount of filing fee.
Consequently, there is no reason why the protest, filed within the
ten-day period provided by the law, should not be given due course by the trial
court.
Besides, private respondent
should not be faulted in not paying the correct amount of P300.00 as
filing fee as he convincingly made it clear that it was the Clerk of Court of
the Regional Trial Court who asked him to pay the amount of P32.00 as
filing fee for the protest.
Moreover,
it is highly preposterous to conclude that private respondent, who has paid
other fees other than the questioned filing fee the amount of which is even
higher than the correct filing fee, could deliberately and intentionally pay
only an amount of P32.00 as filing fee.
Aggrieved thereby, petitioner filed the instant special action for certiorari under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court contending that respondent COMELEC gravely abused its discretion amounting to lack of jurisdiction in not sustaining [his] contention and submission that said electoral protest deserves outright dismissal on the ground of lack of jurisdiction of the Regional Trial Court to hear and decide the same. At bottom, he insists that the rule laid down in Pahilan v. Tabalba has been abandoned in Gatchalian v. Court of Appeals. Pursuant to Gatchalian, it is the payment of the filing fee that vests jurisdiction on the court over election protest cases in view of Section 9, Rule 35 of the COMELEC Rules of Procedure, which provides as follows:
SEC. 9. Filing fee.
--
No protest, counter-protest, or
protest-in-intervention shall be given due course without the payment of the
filing fee in the amount of three hundred pesos (P300.00) for each
interest.
On the other hand, private respondent claims that it was the
Clerk of Court of the RTC who assessed a filing fee of P32, instead of P300,
and that petitioner himself likewise paid P32 as filing fee for his
counter-protest.
Both complied with the
order of the RTC requiring them to pay P268 each for the balance of the
correct amount of filing fee.
Private
respondent further asserts that Gatchalian is not applicable, as it
involved non-payment of filing fee, while here, there was only incomplete
payment of the correct filing fee; hence Pahilan applies.
On their part, the public respondents, through the Office of the
Solicitor General, point out that petitioner himself paid only P32 as
filing fee for his counter-protest, and unconditionally paid the deficiency of P268
after he was also ordered by the RTC to do so, thus, the filing of his petition
for certiorari
with the COMELEC
only on 23 January 1996, or three months after the issuance of the order, was a
mere afterthought.
They likewise
contend that petitioners reliance on Gatchalian is misplaced because in
that case there was absolutely no payment at all of the filing fee;
and that his conclusion that Gatchalian superseded Pahilan is
incorrect since the latter involved an incomplete payment of the filing fee
and was even cited by the former.
After due deliberation, we find nothing to convince us that public respondent COMELEC committed any abuse of discretion, much less grave, in its challenged resolution. Affirmance of its ruling that public respondent RTC committed no grave abuse of discretion in denying petitioner's Motion to Dismiss Protest is inevitable.
Petitioner never disputed the allegations of private respondent
that it was the Clerk of Court of the RTC who assessed the amount of P32
as filing fee at the time of the filing of the election protest; that the same
amount was assessed for petitioners counter-protest; and that both complied
with the order directing each of them to pay the deficiency of P268.
Petitioners good faith in filing with the
COMELEC a petition for certiorari to challenge the denial of his Motion
to Dismiss Protest is obviously suspect.
That he resorted to such remedy confirmed a scheme to unduly delay the
election protest.
This circumstance,
however, is not decisive in resolving the merits of the case.
We must, nevertheless, reiterate the maxim
that he who comes to court must come with clean hands.
The key issue is whether the RTC acquired jurisdiction over
private respondent's election protest despite the payment, upon the filing
thereof, of only a part of the filing fee fixed in Section 9 of Rule 35 of the
COMELEC Rules of Procedure which fixes the filing fee at P300.
Yet, the Clerk of Court assessed and
collected only the sum of P32.
Evidently, the Clerk of Court had in mind the former Section 5(a)(11),4
Rule 141 of the Rules of Court on filing fees.
The error of the Clerk of Court could be due to ignorance of Section 9
of Rule 35 of the COMELEC Rules of Procedure and this Courts 4 September 1990
resolution amending Rule 141 of the Rules of Court on legal fees.
Or it could be due to sheer confusion as to
which rule would apply in assessing the filing fee considering that the
election protest falls within the exclusive original jurisdiction of the
Regional Trial Court,5
in which case the Rules of Court may govern, and that the COMELEC Rules of
Procedure was primarily intended to govern election cases before the COMELEC.6
This ignorance or confusion, however,
was not fatal to private respondents cause. The application by the Clerk of Court of Section 5 of Rule 141 of
the Rules of Court substantially vested the RTC with jurisdiction over the
election protest.
Although this Court
had given its imprimatur to said Section 9 of Rule 35 of the COMELEC Rules of
Procedure,7
the failure of the Clerk of Court to take said section into account is a
technicality which cannot be allowed to defeat the viability of the election
protest.
Indisputably, there was only incomplete payment of the filing fee under Section 9 of Rule 35 of the COMELEC Rules of Procedure, which was not at all attributable to private respondent, who forthwith paid the deficiency upon a subsequent order by the RTC. In short, there was substantial compliance with the filing fee requirement in election cases, for as we held in Pahilan v. Tabalba:
The rules which apply to ordinary civil actions may not necessarily serve the purpose of election cases, especially if we consider the fact that election laws are to be accorded utmost liberality in their interpretation and application, bearing in mind always that the will of the people must be upheld. Ordinary civil actions would generally involve private interests while all election cases are, at all times, invested with public interest which cannot be defeated by mere procedural or technical infirmities.
In the earlier case of Juliano v. Court of Appeals,8 we ruled:
Well
settled is the doctrine that election contests involve public interest, and
technicalities and procedural barriers should not be allowed to stand if they
constitute an obstacle to the determination of the true will of the electorate
in the choice of their elective officials.
And also settled is the rule that laws governing election contests must
be liberally construed to the end that the will of the people in the choice of
public officials may not be defeated by mere technical objections.9 In an election case the court has an
imperative duty to ascertain by all means within its command who is the real
candidate elected by the electorate.10chanroblesvirtuallawlibrary
We have no doubt that petitioner has misread or miscomprehended Gatchalian v. Court of Appeals. As emphasized by the public and private respondents, that case involved absence of payment of the filing fee. Any suggestion then that Gatchalian abandoned Pahilan is absolutely baseless. Both can stand together.
This decision, however, must not provide relief to parties in future cases involving inadequate payment of filing fees in election protests. Pahilan, Gatchalian and this case would no longer provide any excuse for such shortcoming. Elsewise stated, these cases now bar any claim of good faith, excusable negligence or mistake in any failure to pay the full amount of filing fees in election cases which may be filed after the promulgation of this decision.
IN VIEW OF ALL THE FOREGOING, the instant petition is DISMISSEDfor want of merit. The temporary restraining order issued on 25 January 1996 is LIFTEDand the Regional Trial Court, Branch 89, Bacoor, Cavite, is DIRECTED to resolve Election Protest Case No. 95-1 (Rolando C. Rosas v. Roy Loyola) with all reasonable dispatch.
Costs against petitioner.
SO ORDERED.
Narvasa, C.J., Padilla, Regalado, Romero, Bellosillo, Melo, Puno, Vitug, Kapunan, Mendoza, Francisco, Hermosisima, Jr., Panganiban, and Torres, Jr., JJ., concur.
Endnotes:
1 Annex A of Petition, Rollo, 20-25.
2 230 SCRA 205 [1994].
3 245 SCRA 208 [1995].
4 Now Section 7(b)(3), which increased the filing fee for actions not involving property from
P32 toP400; per Resolution of this Court dated 4 September 1990.5 Section 2(2), Article IX-C of the Constitution.
6 Section 3, Article IX-C provides as follows:
SEC. 3. The Commission on Elections may sit en banc or in two divisions, and shall promulgate its rules of procedure in order to expedite disposition of election cases, including pre-proclamation controversies. All such election cases shall be heard and decided in division, provided that motions for reconsideration of decisions shall be decided by the Commission en banc.
7 See Gatchalian v. Court of Appeals, supra note 3. It may also be pointed out that under Section 5(5) of Article VIII (Judicial Department) of the Constitution, "(r)ules of procedure of special courts and quasi-judicial bodies shall remain effective unless disapproved by the Supreme Court.
8 20 SCRA 808, 818-819 (1967). See also Benito v. COMELEC, 235 SCRA 436 (1994); Bince v. COMELEC, 242 SCRA 273 (1995).
9 Citing Gardiner v. Romulo, 26 Phil. 521; Galang v. Miranda, 35 Phil. 269; Jalandoni v. Sarcom, G.R. No. L-6496, January 27, 1962; Macasunding v. Macalagan, G.R. No. L-22779, March 31, 1965; Cauton v. Commission on Elections, G.R. No. L-25467, April 27, 1967.
10 Citing Ibasco v. Ilao, G.R. No. L-17512, December 29, 1960.