4/29/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly mandate of the people. It cannot supplant the sovereign will of the Second District of Pangasinan with fractured legalism. The people of the District have clearly spoken. They overwhelmingly and unequivocally voted for private respondent to represent them in the House of Representatives. The votes that Cruz garnered (80, 119) in the last elections were much more than those of all his opponents combined (66, 182).23 In such instances, all possible doubts should be resolved in favor of the winning candidate's eligibility; to rule otherwise would be to defeat the will of the people. Well-entrenched in our jurisprudence is the doctrine that in case of doubt, political laws must be so constructed as to give life and spirit to the popular mandate freely expressed through the ballot. Public interest and the sovereign will should, at all times, be the paramount considerations in election controversies. For it would be better to err in favor of the people's choice than to be right in complex but little understood legalisms. Indeed, this Court has repeatedly stressed the importance of giving effect to the sovereign will in order to ensure the survival of our democracy. In any action involving the possibility of a reversal of the popular electoral choice, this Court must exert utmost effort to resolve the issues in a manner that would give effect to the will of the majority, for it is merely sound public policy to cause elective offices to be filled by those who are the choice of the majority. To successfully challenge a winning candidate's qualifications, the petitioner must clearly demonstrative that the ineligibility is so patently antagonistic to constitutional and legal principles that overriding such ineligibility and thereby giving effect to the apparent will of the people would ultimately create greater prejudice to the very democratic institutions and juristic traditions that our Constitution and laws so zealously protect and promote See also Fernandez v. House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal, G.R. No. 187478, December 21, 2009, 608 SCRA 733. [39] 373 Phil. 896 (1999). [40] Section 5, Rule 64 of the Rules of Court states that “[f]indings of facts of the Commission supported by substantial evidence shall be final and non-reviewable.” [41] Mitra v. Commission on Elections, G.R. No. 191938, July 2, 2010, 622 SCRA 744. Source: Supreme Court E-Library This page was dynamically generated by the E-Library Content Management System (E-LibCMS) elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/55820 48/49