G.R. No. 156211 - MEGA-LAND RESOURCES AND DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION, REPRESENTED BY ITS PRESIDENT AND GENERAL MANAGER, SY SIONG LATO, VS. C-E CONSTRUCTION CORPORATION AND CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY ARBITRATION BOARD.D E C I S I O N - Supreme Court E-Library

Ruling

accordingly docketed and raffled for evaluation and eventual deliberation. If each of the cases involve the same petitioner, the same respondents, and seek the extension of time to file a petition or appeal concerning the same decision of the lower court or tribunal, then all the opportunity and dangers of forum shopping are imminent. The evil itself would finally be actualized once a separate appeal or petition for each case is actually filed. Thus, even if forum-shopping had not yet been consummated, the steps undertaken by petitioner herein may give rise to a prima facie indication that it was about to commit forum-shopping. Neither would there have been any rational or legal justification for having filed two separate motions for extension, as such steps are not oriented towards any valid legal outcome. Accordingly, a party who commits such error in good faith has the obligation to correct the same upon becoming aware of the anomaly. That petitioner was under such an obligation in this case is inescapably evident. The fact that the petition for review intended for filing in the second case bore instead the docket number of the first case indicates that petitioner and its new counsel, Atty. Flores, knew of the first case earlier initiated by Fajardo Law Offices. In short, at the time the petition was filed with the Court of Appeals, petitioner had known that there were two similar cases involving the same parties and causes of action. There were a variety of options petitioner could have resorted to in order to rectify the anomaly. Upon learning that there were actually two different cases pending before the Court of Appeals, petitioner could have moved to withdraw either any of the motions for extension of time, so that there would be only one case pending with the appellate court. It really would not matter if it were the first case or the second case which was withdrawn, since either case was a viable vehicle for petitioner's intended appeal. Had petitioner done this at the onset, even if later the filed petition itself stated the wrong docket number, the Court of Appeals could have easily recorded the pleading under the case that remained in existence since it would anyway be incapable of filing the same under the records of a case that had already been withdrawn. Our procedural rules were not crafted with the intent of unilaterally conferring fatal consequences on simple typographical errors. But because petitioner was delinquent in ensuring that only one of the two cases remained extant, as properly should be, the "fiasco" ensued merely from applying the correct legal procedures. Even as no petition was timely filed in the first case after no second motion for extension was sought therein, said case had not yet been closed and terminated upon the belated filing of the appeal. Since the appeal was filed beyond the reglementary period, its dismissal was in accord with the rules of procedure. At the same time, since no petition was filed at