By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga

The Bacolod City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 42 dismissed a civil case requesting for a manual count or audit of the ballots cast in the May 9, 2016 elections pursuant to the constitutional guarantee of suffrage.
The case was filed on May 30, 2016 by representatives of registered voters who supported the cause of NUP-MKK (National Unity Party-Magbinuligay Kita sa Kauswagan) in the May 2016 polls.
The respondents were the election Board of Canvassers (BOC), namely: City Commission on Elections Officer Mavil Majarucon-Sia, Leilanie Lory Bojos (BOC vice chairman), Lawyer Gerald John Joven (BOC secretary), and City Treasurer Giovanni Balalilhe.
An order issued by Branch 42 Judge Fernando Elumba dated November 21, 2016 dismissed the petition of the MKK supporters, stating the courts have no authority to pass upon issues through advisory opinion or to resolve hypothetical or feigned problems.
“Courts do not sit to adjudicate mere academic questions to satisfy scholarly interest, however intellectually challenging. Thus, it cannot be overemphasized that, as a condition precedent to the exercise of judicial power, an actual controversy between litigants must first exist,” the court added.
The court had acted on an earlier Motion to Dismiss filed by respondents through the Office of the Solicitor General.
In its MR, the plaintiffs cited that they received the court order on December 6 of last year, dismissing the petition on the finding that “there is no actual case or controversy that exists in the case at bar” and that “it is our duty not to rule on abstract and speculative issues barren of actual facts.”
According to the petitioners, in respect to the court, it failed to see the actual, legal and constitutional controversy raised before it by the petition and they asked to carefully look at this matter one more time.
On the other hand, Lawyers Joselito Bayatan and Edward Joseph Cuansing, defendants-intervenors in the petition, filed their comment on December 15 on the MR filed by plaintiffs, praying to the court to deny the MR for lack of merit.
Earlier, Lyndon Caña, one of the legal counsels of the petitioners, said the petitioners were organized members and supporters of the NUP-MKK, numbering about 120,000 voters and supporters. However, due to the volume of the affidavits, only sample of at least 1,000 signatories are attached to the petition.
The petitioners, part of their claims, stated that under Section 206 of Batas Pambansa 881, or the Omnibus Election Code of the Philippines, counting of ballots as soon as the voting is finished is supposed to be done by the board of inspectors in a public manner to ascertain the result of the votes in that precinct.
However, in the May 9 election, while the Vote Counting Machines (VCMs) issued receipts for the votes, the tabulation of the votes was not shown to the public.
The petitioners also claimed that curious and suspicious data generated from analyzing the announced election results indicated of fraud and irregularities./WDJ