G.R. No. 136384 - HADJI HUSSEIN MOHAMMAD, VS. COMMISSION ON

Ruling

WHEREFORE, premises considered, the Commission (Second Division) hereby renders judgment ANNULLING the election and proclamation of protestee HADJI HUSSEIN MOHAMAD as the third winning candidate for the position of Member of the Regional Legislative Assembly of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao representing the Second District of the Province of Sulu. ACCORDINGLY, protestee is hereby DIRECTED to VACATE and RELINQUISH said position to the protestant ABDULAHID ESTINO upon finality of this Resolution." On October 30, 1998, petitioner presented a Motion for Reconsideration of the said Resolution. However, the COMELEC En Banc, [5] in its Resolution [6] of December 8, 1998, disposed thus: "After due deliberation, the Commission ( en banc ), finding no sufficient arguments which would warrant a reversal of this Commission's (Second Division) resolution, the instant motion for reconsideration is hereby DISMISSED for lack of merit. The decision subject of said motion is hereby affirmed." With the denial of his Motion for Reconsideration, petitioner found his way to this Court via the present petition, contending that the COMELEC acted with grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction, in issuing the assailed Resolutions. The issues presented for resolution are: I WHETHER THE QUESTIONED COMELEC RESOLUTIONS EXPRESS CLEARLY AND DISTINCTLY THE FACTS AND THE LAW ON WHICH THEY ARE BASED. II WHETHER THE TECHNICAL EXAMINATION OF THE FINGERPRINTS IN THE VOTING RECORDS WAS THE PROPER METHOD OF RESOLVING PRIVATE RESPONDENT'S ELECTION PROTEST. III WHETHER THE COMELEC COMMITTED AN ERROR IN APPRECIATING THE RESULTS OF THE TECHNICAL EXAMINATION OF THE VOTING RECORDS. On the first issue, the Court rules that the Resolutions under attack express clearly and distinctly the facts and the law upon which the same were based. It is readily apparent from the Resolution promulgated on October 27, 1998 that it was anchored on the results of the technical examination of the handwritings and fingerprints of the voters in the protested precincts, to wit: "Peripherals aside, the case at bench entails merely the technical examination of the handwritings and fingerprints of the voters in the questioned precincts by going over these details in the Lists of Voters [CEF-2] vis-a-vis the Voter's Registration Records [CEF-1] in order to ascertain the truth or falsity of the allegations of both protestant and protestee. The procedure laid down by the Commission is not a novelty nor an experiment. In Estaniel vs. Commission on Elections, 42 SCRA 436, and Pimping vs. Commission on Elections, 140 SCRA 192, the Honorable Supreme Court explicitly ruled that a protest case may be decided based on the election documents presented before the Commission without recourse to the ballots. In fact, in a Resolution promulgated on January 31, 1995 by the Commission (First Division) and affirmed by the Commission En Banc in the Resolution of April 27, 1995, both on unanimous