ANTONIO SINGSON CORTAL vs INAKI LARRAZABAL

G.R. No. 199107 August 30, 2017

FACTS:
The assailed CA Resolution dismissed Cortal’s appeal under Rule 43 of the 1997 Rules of
Civil Procedure due to several technical defects such as the inconsistency between the
listings of petitioners’ names in Motion for extension of time and Petition accompanied by
inconsistent and defective verification and certification of non-forum shopping; non-inclusion
of the original complaint before the Regional Agrarian Reform Adjudicator of the DAR; and
the petitioners’ counsel’s failure to indicate the place of issue of the official receipt of his IBP
membership dues.

ISSUE:
Whether or not the dismissal of the petitioners’ appeal was justified by the errors noted by
the Court of Appeals

RULING:
No. Procedural rules "are tools designed to facilitate the adjudication of cases so that courts
and litigants are enjoined to abide strictly by the rules." They provide a system for
forestalling arbitrariness, caprice, despotism, or whimsicality in dispute settlement. Thus,
they are not to be ignored to suit the interests of a party. Their disregard cannot be justified
by a sweeping reliance on a "policy of liberal construction."

The Court held that every party litigant must be afforded the fullest opportunity to properly
ventilate and argue his or her case, "free from the constraints of technicalities." Rule 1,
Section 6 of the Rules of Court expressly stipulates their liberal construction to the extent
that justice is better served. In this case, the CA was harsh in denying petitioners the
opportunity to exhaustively ventilate and argue their case. It should have enabled a better
consideration of the intricate issues of the application of the Comprehensive Agrarian
Reform Law, social justice, expropriation, and just compensation. The reversals of rulings at
the level of the DARAB could have been taken as an indication that the matters at stake
were far from being so plain that they should be ignored on mere technicalities.