G.R. No. 203833 - MAMERTO T. SEVILLA, JR., VS. COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS AND RENATO R. SO.R E S O L U T I O N - Supreme Court E-Library

Ruling

WHEREFORE, premises considered, the Motion for Reconsideration is hereby DENIED for lack of merit. Respondent judge is directed to conduct another revision of the contested ballots in Election Protest Case No. SP-6719 with dispatch. [9] It ruled that where the dismissal was capricious, certiorari lies as the petition challenges not the correctness but the validity of the order of dismissal. The Comelec en banc emphasized that procedural technicalities should be disregarded for the immediate and final resolution of election cases inasmuch as ballots should be read and appreciated with utmost liberality so that the will of the electorate in the choice of public officials may not be defeated by technical infirmities. It found that the MeTC Judge committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack of jurisdiction when she did not comply with the mandatory requirements of Section 2(d), Rule 14 of A.M. No. 07-4-15-SC on the form of the decision in election protests involving pairs or groups of ballots written by two persons. It noted that based on the general and repetitive phraseology of the Order, the MeTC Judges findings were copy-pasted into the decision and ran counter to the mandate of the aforementioned rule. Also, the MeTC Judge failed to mention in her appreciation of the ballots that she examined the Minutes of Voting and Counting to ascertain whether there were illiterate voters or assisted voters in the protested precincts. [10] Commissioner Lims Dissent [11] The dissent posited that Sos petition should be dismissed outright as it was mired in procedural errors. First, So should have filed an appeal within five (5) days from receipt of the MeTCs Order; a motion for reconsideration was improper as the Order amounted to the final disposition of the protest. Second, So should not have filed the motion for reconsideration even if he believed that the Order was interlocutory since a motion for reconsideration is a prohibited pleading. Also, he could have simply filed the petition for certiorari without the necessity of filing the motion for reconsideration. Third , the petition for certiorari cannot be a substitute for the lost appeal. The Comelec could not even treat the certiorari as an appeal since the petition was filed 25 days after So received the assailed Order; thus, the Order already attained finality. Finally , procedural rules should not be lightly shunned in favor of liberality when, as in this case, So did not give a valid excuse for his errors. The Petition The Comelec gravely abused its discretion when it gave due course to the petition for certiorari Sevilla argues that the Comelec gravely abused its discretion when it entertained Sos petition despite its loss of jurisdiction to entertain the petition after the court a quos dismissal order became final and executory due to Sos wrong choice of remedy. Instead of filing an appeal within five (5) days from receipt of the Order and paying the required appeal fee, So filed