G.R. No. 156211 ; July 31, 2007
MEGA-LAND RESOURCES AND DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION, represented by its President and General Manager, SY SIONG LATO, Petitioner, vs. C-E CONSTRUCTION CORPORATION and CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY ARBITRATION BOARD, Respondents.

FACTS

The CIAC rendered a decision against petitioner Mega-Land, which received notice on June 20, 2002. Through its original counsel, Fajardo Law Offices, petitioner filed a motion for extension of time to file a petition for review with the Court of Appeals, docketed as CA-G.R. SP No. 71485 (first case). Simultaneously, petitioner’s president, Sy Siong Lato, filed a separate motion for extension under a new docket number, CA-G.R. SP No. 71504 (second case), citing a change in representation. Both motions were granted, extending the deadline to July 20, 2002. Petitioner’s new counsel, Atty. Flores, later secured a second extension in the second case, moving the final deadline to August 4, 2002.
On August 1, 2002, Atty. Flores filed the Petition for Review. However, he erroneously captioned it under the docket number of the first case (CA-G.R. SP No. 71485), where the filing period had already lapsed on July 20, instead of the second case (CA-G.R. SP No. 71504), where the petition was still timely. The Court of Appeals’ Sixteenth Division, to which the first case was assigned, dismissed the petition for being filed out of time. Petitioner’s motion for reconsideration was denied.

ISSUE

Whether the Court of Appeals gravely abused its discretion in dismissing the Petition for Review due to a clerical error in the docket number, thereby denying petitioner’s right to appeal.

RULING

No, the Court of Appeals did not commit grave abuse of discretion. The Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal, emphasizing that procedural rules on reglementary periods for appeal are mandatory and jurisdictional. The error was not merely clerical; it was a fatal procedural mistake that misdirected the petition to the wrong division. The petition was physically filed in the second case’s record, but its caption invoked the jurisdiction of the Sixteenth Division in the first case, which had already lost jurisdiction after the lapse of the appeal period. Petitioner’s subsequent attempt to correct the error by informing the Fifth Division of the second case did not cure the defect, as the filing with the wrong division was ineffective. The right to appeal is not a natural right but a statutory privilege that must be exercised in accordance with the law. While the Court has, in instances of sheer technicality, relaxed procedural rules to serve substantial justice, such liberality cannot be applied here where the error directly caused the loss of the right to appeal by missing the jurisdictional deadline. The negligence of counsel binds the client.