Sandoval vs HRET

Petition for Certiorari

FACTS:

 Petitioner Sandoval and respondent Oreta were candidates for the lone congressional district of
Malabon-Navotas
 Petitioner was proclaimed duly elected representative by the District Board of Canvassers of
Malabon-Navotas. After taking his oath of office, he assumed the post
 Respondent Oreta filed with HRET an election protest against petitioner and alleged electoral
frauds and anomalies in 1,308 precincts of the Malabon-Navotas District.
 HRET issued the corresponding summons for service upon petitioner
 HRET Process Server Pacifico Lim served the summons by substituted service upon a certain
Gene Maga who signed the process server's copy of the summons and indicated thereon his
position as "maintenance" along with the date and time of his receipt thereof
 HRET issued a Resolution which took note of petitioner Sandoval's failure to file an answer to
the election protest within ten (10) days from date of service of the summons and entered in his
behalf a general denial of the allegations set forth in the protest.
 HRET ordered both petitioner and respondent to file their respective preliminary conference
briefs. It was only respondent Oreta who filed the required preliminary conference brief
 instead of filing a preliminary conference brief, petitioner moved for reconsideration of the
Resolution and prayed for the admission of his answer. He argued that the substituted service of
summons upon him was improperly effected upon a maintenance man Gene Maga who
was "neither a regular employee nor responsible officer at [petitioner's] office." But was denied
by the HRET

ISSUE:

Was substituted service of summons validly effected on petitioner in the election protest before the
House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET)?

HELD:

YES. Respondent Oreta filed her Comment to the instant petition. The Office of the Solicitor General
filed a Manifestation and Motion In Lieu of Comment. The Solicitor General found that the substituted
service of summons upon petitioner was faulty and thus recommended favorable action on the petition.
HRET also submitted a Manifestation and Motion In Lieu of Comment manifesting that as a nominal
party in the instant case it was not filing a "separate comment" from the Solicitor General's pleading.
In view of the delicate nature and the gravity of the charge, the observance of the HRET Rules of
Procedure, in conjunction with our own Rules of Court, must be taken seriously.
The propriety of the substituted service of summons upon petitioner Sandoval is therefore no less
pivotal, for upon it depends not simply the jurisdiction of the HRET over the person of petitioner but
also the breadth of fairness of the proceedings therein, where the opportunity to be heard on the grave
accusations against him and more significantly on his own counter-protest is properly withheld or
compulsorily observed. Compliance with the rules on the service of summons is both a concern of
jurisdiction as it is of due process. Petitioner should have been given by public
respondent a fair chance to defend the legitimacy of his lead votes over respondent Oreta and dispel
any cloud on his election.
The matter of serving summons is governed by the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure which applies
suppletorily to the Revised Rules of the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal through its Rule 80.
It is well-established that summons upon a respondent or a defendant (i.e., petitioner herein) must be
served by handing a copy thereof to him in person or, if he refuses to receive it, by tendering it to
him. Personal service of summons most effectively ensures that the notice desired under the
constitutional requirement of due process is accomplished. If however efforts to find him personally
would make prompt service impossible, service may be completed by substituted service, i.e., by
leaving copies of the summons at his dwelling house or residence with some person of suitable age
and discretion then residing therein or by leaving the copies at his office or regular place of business
with some competent person in charge thereof.
Substituted service derogates the regular method of personal service. It is an extraordinary method
since it seeks to bind the respondent or the defendant to the consequences of a suit even though notice
of such action is served not upon him but upon another whom the law could only presume would notify
him of the pending proceedings. As safeguard measures for this drastic manner of bringing in a person
to answer for a claim, it is required that statutory restrictions for substituted service must be strictly,
faithfully and fully observed. In our jurisdiction, for service of summons to be valid, it is necessary first to
establish the following circumstances, i.e., (a) impossibility of service of summons within a reasonable
time, (b) efforts exerted to locate the petitioners and, (c) service upon a person of sufficient age and
discretion residing therein or some competent person in charge of his office or regular place of
business. It is also essential that the pertinent facts proving these circumstances be stated in the proof
of service or officer's return itself and only under exceptional terms may they be proved by
evidence aliunde. Failure to comply with this rule renders absolutely void the substituted service along
with the proceedings taken thereafter for lack of jurisdiction over the person of the defendant or the
respondent.
We find no merit in respondent Oreta's austere argument that personal service need not be exhausted
before substituted service may be used since time in election protest cases is of the essence.
The record will show that the affidavit of service gives only barren details, such as the date of receipt
and the position of the person receiving the summons. The HRET findings were instead based on
the joint affidavit of Process Server Pacifico Lim and Accounting Clerk Aurora Napolis executed long after
the summons was served on. The joint affidavit is clearly not the officer's return referred to in the rules
on substituted service of summons but a species of evidence aliunde generally inadmissible to prove
compliance with the requirements of substituted service unless under exceptional circumstances, which
were nowhere in this case.
It is truly unfortunate that the purported substituted service of summons upon petitioner Sandoval
was irregularly executed. Except for the time and place of service and the signature of
the "maintenance" man who received the summons, there is absolutely nothing in the process
server's affidavit of service indicating the impossibility of personal service of summons upon
petitioner within a reasonable time
Moreover, we do not find in the record, much less in the affidavit of service executed by the process
server, that the summons and a copy of the election protest were served on a competent person in
charge of petitioner's office for Gene Maga, the recipient of the summons, was merely a
"maintenance" man. His occupation as a freelance service contractor, not as employee of petitioner
Sandoval, is very clear not only from the assertion of petitioner in his motion for reconsideration that
Maga was "neither a regular employee nor responsible officer at [petitioners] office"
It bears emphasis that these assertions were not rebutted. Clearly, it follows from this that Maga, not
being an employee thereof, would be an incompetent person to receive the summons in petitioner's
behalf.
Granting that Gene Maga was an employee of petitioner at his district office, an assumption that we
stress is contrary to the evidence on record, still it cannot be said that he was qualified to receive the
summons. To be a "competent" person to receive the summons means that he should be "duly
qualified" and "having sufficient capacity, ability or authority." In Keister v. Navarrowe set out the
qualifications of the persons designated by the Rules of Court to whom copies of the process may be
left: "The rule presupposes that such a relation of confidence exists between the person with whom
the copy is left and the defendant and, therefore, assumes that such person will deliver the process to
defendant or in some way give him notice thereof."
As "maintenance" man, it is reasonable to assume that Gene Maga was not tasked to deal with or
handle documents flowing in and out of petitioner's office. He may have been very efficient in
tinkering with the light bulbs of the district office or plugging leaking water pipes, but it is also
reasonable for anyone to assume, especially the process server who must have been oriented about
the requirements of substituted service, that petitioner could not have reposed such confidence in
Maga to accept official documents for the district office or to turn over as a matter of course
documents that he would have received.
Not only was Gene Maga an incompetent person to receive the summons, he was also, more plainly, not
in charge of petitioners office.
We also do not find any evidence aliunde to prove the requisites of a valid substituted service of
summons. The process server or any other responsible HRET employee did not present evidence
confirming the necessity for such method of serving the summons nor exhibiting the authority of Maga,
the "maintenance" man, to receive the document. There is also nothing in this case to prove, under the
rules of evidence consistently relied upon by HRET, that anyone with whom petitioner had a relationship
of confidence knew of the outstanding summons and pending election protest to have ensured
petitioner's receipt or at least notification thereof.
On its face, there is no evidentiary value to the allegation that an HRET employee, Accounting Clerk
Aurora Napolis, was assured by the staffof petitioner's father, Congressman Vicente A. Sandoval, that
someone at petitioner's district office would be receiving the summons.
In the first place, the process server could not have relied upon this purported assurance since it was not
made nor communicated subsequently to him while in the process of serving the summons. More
importantly, the record is bereft of any basis to show that the staff of Congressman Vicente A. Sandoval
was petitioner's own "speaking agent" who had knowledge and authority to guarantee receipt of the
summons by a competent person in charge of his district office.
Moreover, we cannot give weight to the allegation appearing in the assailed Resolution No. 01-118 that
a person who supposedly identified himself as the Chief of Staff of petitioner Sandoval called up the
Office of the Secretary of the HRET to inquire about the last day for filing petitioner's answer to the
election protest, a claim apparently intended to establish that petitioner had notice of the summons and
the election protest against him. For one, neither the joint affidavit of Process Server Pacifico Lim and
Accounting Clerk Aurora Napolis, which the HRET mistook to be the affidavit of service, nor the
supplemental affidavit of Process Server Pacifico Limmade any reference to this supposed telephone
call.
It must also be stressed that, as a matter of reliability and trustworthiness, a telephone conversation
must first be authenticated before it can even be received in evidence. To this end, it is critical that the
person with whom the witness was conversing on the phone is first satisfactorily identified, by voice
recognition or any other means, as the Chief of Staff. In the instant case, there is no evidence to
conclude that the person who called up the HRET Office of the Secretary was the Chief of Staff
of petitioner.
Lastly, there is no proof that petitioner actually received the summons as well as a copy of the election
protest which would have otherwise satisfied the purpose of giving notice of the pending suit.
In the absence of even the barest compliance with the procedure for substituted service of summons
outlined in the Rules of Court, the presumption of regularity in the performance of public
functions does not apply. It is unmistakable that the process server hastily served the summons upon
petitioner Sandoval by substituted service without first attempting to personally serve the
process. This violates the rule granting absolute preference to personal service of summons and, only
secondarily, when the defendant cannot be promptly served in person and after compliance with
stringent formal and substantive requirements, permitting resort to substituted service. In light of the
defective and irregular substituted service of summons, the HRET did not acquire
jurisdiction over the person of petitioner and consequently the period within which to file his answer
with counter-protest did not start to run.