Digest by Janine Marie D. Soliman
FACTS
A petition was filed with the Court of Appeals that sought to have the Regional Trial Court’s judgment annulled, after the lower court ruled in a land title case to cancel certain derivative titles to which herein petitioners were the registered owners, on the ground that petitioners Torres were not parties to the proceedings conducted as they were all living and working abroad. The land title case stemmed from a 1999 complaint filed by herein respondents against Spouses Leonora and Florencio Gaspar, who are not parties to the instant case. The CA dismissed the petition as well as the subsequent motion for reconsideration. Hence, the instant petition for review on certiorari, where petitioners asserted the CA was wrong in invoking the doctrine of stare decisis, after the latter alleged that the present petition should be dismissed due to the procedural issue that it was the petitioners’ counsel who signed the Certificate of Non-Forum Shopping, not the petitioners themselves.
ISSUE
Whether the instant petition should be dismissed because petitioners’ certification against forum shopping was signed by their counsel and not by them.
RULING
NO. Citing its decision in Altres vs. Empleo, the Supreme Court held that while it was petitioners’ counsel who signed the verification and certification against forum shopping, it found that there was substantial compliance with the requirements on the certification against forum shopping, particularly, that (1) the same must be signed by all the plaintiffs or petitioners in a case, otherwise, those who did not sign will be dropped as parties to the case. However, under reasonable circumstances, the signature of only one of them in the certification against forum shopping will suffice. And (2) such certificate must be executed by the party-leader, not by his counsel; however, should the former be unable to sign due to justifiable reasons, he must execute a Special Power of Attorney (SPA) designating his counsel of record to sign on his behalf. Moreover, as petitioners are all living and working abroad and could not sign the certificate, petitioners executed their respective SPAs designating their counsel on record to sign the certification against forum shopping on their behalf. Similar to the rules on verification, the rules on forum shopping are designed to promote and facilitate the orderly administration of justice; hence, it should not be interpreted with such absolute literalness as to subvert its own ultimate and legitimate objectives.
THE BARRISTER 