P.E.T. CASE No.

002             March 29, 2005

RONALD ALLAN POE a.k.a. FERNANDO POE, JR., Protestant,

Facts:

 Before this Electoral Tribunal, composed pursuant to the Constitution, by all the fifteen
members of the Supreme Court, is a matter of first impression. We are tasked to determine,
as originally prayed for, whether the Protestant’s widow (Mrs. Jesusa Sonora Poe, popularly
known as the cinema star Susan Roces) could intervene and/or substitute for the deceased
party, assuming arguendo that the protest could survive his death.

 Past midnight, in the early hours of June 24, 2004, the Congress as the representatives of
the sovereign people and acting as the National Board of Canvassers, in a near-unanimous
roll-call vote, proclaimed Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) the duly elected President of
the Philippines. She obtained 12,905,808 votes, as against 11,782,232 votes for the second-
placer, the movie actor Fernando Poe, Jr. (FPJ). She took her Oath of Office before the
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court on June 30, 2004.

 Refusing to concede defeat, the second-placer in the elections, Mr. FPJ, filed seasonably an
election protest before this Electoral Tribunal. Mrs. GMA, through counsel, filed her Answer
with Counter Protest.

 As counsels for the parties exchanged lively motions to rush the presentation of their
respective positions on the controversy, an act of God intervened. On December 14, 2004,
the Protestant died in the course of his medical treatment at St. Luke’s Hospital. The medical
certificate, filed by counsel as part of the Notice of Death of the Protestant, showed that he
died of cardio-pulmonary arrest, secondary to cerebral infarction.

 However, neither the Protestee’s proclamation by Congress nor the death of her main rival
as a fortuitous intervening event, appears to abate the present controversy in the public
arena. Instead, notice may be taken of periodic mass actions, demonstrations, and rallies
raising an outcry for this Tribunal to decide the electoral protest of Mr. FPJ against Mrs. GMA
once and for all. The oracular function of this Tribunal, it would appear, needs to be fully
exercised to make manifest here and abroad who is the duly elected leader of the Filipino
nation.

 Together with the formal Notice of the Death of Protestant, his counsel has submitted to the
Tribunal, a "MANIFESTATION with URGENT PETITION/MOTION to INTERVENE AS A
SUBSTITUTE FOR DECEASED PROTESTANT FPJ," by the widow, Mrs. Jesusa Sonora
Poe, who signed the verification and certification therein.

 As movant/intervenor, Mrs. FPJ claims that because of the untimely demise of her husband
and in representation not only of her deceased husband but more so because of the
paramount interest of the Filipino people, there is an urgent need for her to continue and
substitute for her late husband in the election protest initiated by him to ascertain the true
and genuine will of the electorate in the 2004 elections. In support of her assertion, she
cites De Castro v. Commission on Elections, and Lomugdang v. Javier, to the effect that the
death of the protestant does not constitute a ground for the dismissal of the contest nor oust
 the trial court of the jurisdiction to decide the election contest. She stresses nevertheless that
even if the instant protest case succeeds, she is cognizant that as a mere substitute she
cannot succeed, assume or be entitled to said elective office, and her utmost concern is not
personal but one that involves the public’s interest.

 In her Comment, the Protestee, Mrs. GMA, relying on Vda. de De Mesa v. Mencias and
subsequent cases including analogous cases decided by the House of Representatives
Electoral Tribunal (HRET), asserts that the widow of a deceased candidate is not the proper
party to replace the deceased protestant since a public office is personal and not a property
that passes on to the heirs. She points out that the widow has no legal right to substitute for
her husband in an election protest, since no such right survives the husband, considering
that the right to file an election protest is personal and non-transmissible.

 Protestee also contends Mrs. FPJ cannot substitute for her deceased husband because
under the Rules of the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, only the registered candidates who
obtained the 2nd and 3rd highest votes for the presidency may contest the election of the
president and patently, Mrs. FPJ did not receive the 2nd and 3rd highest votes for she was not
even a candidate for the presidency in the election that is being contested.

 According to protestee, movant/intervenor Mrs. FPJ cannot use "the public interest" to justify
her request to be substituted for her husband. She asserts that the only case herein
cognizable by this Tribunal is an election protest involving a protestant and a protestee, not
between the electorate and the protestee.

 In her Reply, movant/intervenor insists, however, that the public interest remains. Further,
movant/intervenor posits that the protest having been commenced cannot be abated by the
death of the protestant and the only real issue is the determination of the proper substitute.
She contends that with no personal interest involved, any registered voter can continue the
duly-commenced protest as the real-party-in-interest which is analogous to a quo warranto.
Movant/intervenor reiterates that the issue at hand involves just the continuation of
proceedings by allowing substitution and the taking over by the substitute of the prosecution
of the protest already "duly commenced."

Issue:

May the widow substitute/intervene for the protestant who died during the pendency of the latter’s
protest case? (NO)

Ruling:

The fundamental rule applicable in a presidential election protest is Rule 14 of the PET Rules. It
provides,

Rule 14. Election Protest. – Only the registered candidate for President or for Vice-President
of the Philippines who received the second or third highest number of votes may contest the
election of the President or the Vice-President, as the case may be, by filing a verified
petition with the Clerk of the Presidential Electoral Tribunal within thirty (30) days after the
proclamation of the winner.

Pursuant to this rule, only two persons, the 2nd and 3rd placers, may contest the election. By this
express enumeration, the rule makers have in effect determined the real parties in interest
concerning an on-going election contest. It envisioned a scenario where, if the declared winner had
not been truly voted upon by the electorate, the candidate who received that 2nd or the 3rd highest
number of votes would be the legitimate beneficiary in a successful election contest.

This Tribunal, however, does not have any rule on substitution nor intervention but it does allow for
the analogous and suppletory application of the Rules of Court, decisions of the Supreme Court, and
the decisions of the electoral tribunals.

Rule 3, Section 16 is the rule on substitution in the Rules of Court. This rule allows substitution by a
legal representative. It can be gleaned from the citation of this rule that movant/intervenor seeks to
appear before this Tribunal as the legal representative/substitute of the late protestant prescribed by
said Section 16. However, in our application of this rule to an election contest, we have every time
ruled that a public office is personal to the public officer and not a property transmissible to
the heirs upon death. Thus, we consistently rejected substitution by the widow or the heirs in
election contests where the protestant dies during the pendency of the protest. In Vda. de De
Mesa v. Mencias, we recognized substitution upon the death of the protestee but denied substitution
by the widow or heirs since they are not the real parties in interest. Similarly, in the later case
of De la Victoria v. Commission on Elections, we struck down the claim of the surviving spouse and
children of the protestee to the contested office for the same reason. Even in analogous cases
before other electoral tribunals, involving substitution by the widow of a deceased protestant, in
cases where the widow is not a real party in interest, we denied substitution by the wife or heirs.

This is not to say that death of the protestant necessarily abates the pending action. We have held
as early as Vda. de De Mesa (1966) that while the right to a public office is personal and exclusive to
the public officer, an election protest is not purely personal and exclusive to the protestant or to the
protestee such that the death of either would oust the court of all authority to continue the protest
proceedings. Hence, we have allowed substitution and intervention but only by a real party in
interest. In Vda. de De Mesa v. Mencias and Lomugdang v. Javier, we permitted substitution by the
vice-mayor since the vice-mayor is a real party in interest considering that if the protest succeeds
and the protestee is unseated, the vice-mayor succeeds to the office of the mayor that becomes
vacant if the one duly elected cannot assume office. In contrast, herein movant/intervenor, Mrs. FPJ,
herself denies any claim to the august office of President. Thus, given the circumstances of
this case, we can conclude that protestant’s widow is not a real party in interest to this
election protest.

Indeed, the personal aspect of the case is inextricably linked with the public interest. For an election
protest involves not merely conflicting private aspirations but is imbued with public interest which
raises it into a plane over and above ordinary civil actions. But herein movant/intervenor, Mrs. FPJ,
has overly stressed that it is with the "paramount public interest" in mind that she desires "to pursue
the process" commenced by her late husband. She avers that she is "pursuing the process" to
determine who truly won the election, as a service to the Filipino people. However, nobility of
intention is not the point of reference in determining whether a person may intervene in an
election protest. Rule 19, Section 1 of the Rules of Court is the applicable rule on intervention in
the absence of such a rule in the PET Rules. In such intervention, the interest which allows a person
to intervene in a suit must be in the matter of litigation and of such direct and immediate character
that the intervenor will either gain or lose by the effect of the judgment. In this protest, Mrs. FPJ will
not immediately and directly benefit from the outcome should it be determined that the
declared president did not truly get the highest number of votes. In this case, no real parties
such as the vice-presidential aspirants in the 2004 elections, have come forward to intervene, or to
be substituted for the deceased protestant. In our view, if persons not real parties in the action could
be allowed to intervene, proceedings will be unnecessarily complicated, expensive and interminable
– and this is not the policy of the law. It is far more prudent to abide by the existing strict limitations
on intervention and substitution under the law and the rules.

Conformably then with the law, the rules and prevailing jurisprudence, this Tribunal finds no
justifiable reason to grant the petition/motion for intervention and substitution.