RE: GUIDELINES ON SUBMISSION OF ELECTRONIC COPIES

OF PLEADINGS AND OTHER COURT SUBMISSIONS BEING

FILED BEFORE THE LOWER COURTS PURSUANT TO THE
EFFICIENT USE OF PAPER RULE
MOVING TOWARDS DIGITAL COURTS:
COMPONENT ONE: TRANSITION TO ELECTRONIC FILING AND
SERVICE OF PLEADINGS, MOTIONS AND OTHER DOCUMENTS
AS WELL AS DIGITAL SERVICE OF ALL ORDERS IN CIVIL
CASES
Strategic Plan for Judicial
Innovations for 2022- 2027
• Development of an eCourt System Version 2.0 (eCourt PH 2.0) for the
digitalization of adjudication
• Comprises:
1. Digital filing and service of all pleadings, motions, and other court
documents, as well as the digital service of court orders in civil cases;
2. Installation of the digital case dashboard in all trial courts;
3. Digitization of existing case records and rollos in all pending cases;
4. Digital filing arid service before the Supreme Court and appellate courts;
5. Digital appeals process; and
6. Digital criminal and special proceedings
Section 1. Mandatory submission of
electronic copies of filings in civil cases
• 1 September 2024
• First and second-level court
• No filing, service, and offer without the electronic transmittal through
e-mail.
• Accompanying documents – should also be electronically submitted.
• Completed within 24hrs from completion of the primary manner of
the document’s filing, service, or offer in accordance with Rule 13 of
2019 Amendments to the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure.
Exceptions
• annexes, appendices, exhibits, or other accompanying documents to
pleadings or other court submissions not readily amenable to
digitization to portable document format (PDF); AND
• sealed and confidential documents or records.
Section 2. Electronic copies of
outbound court documents
• 1 September 2024
• All orders and other documents issued by any trial court, served upon
the parties, shall likewise be transmitted to the parties and their
respective counsel in PDF copies through e-maii using the court's
official e-mail address.
• Shall indicate the primary manner of service of order or document
• Failure to file Notice of Appearance (Section 4[a]) before service of a
court-issued order or document shall be deemed a waiver of receipt
of electronic copy
Section 3. Mandatory electronic
filing and service
• 1 December 2024
• primary and mandatory manner of service of outbound court documents
within a certified judicial region shall be through electronic transmittal,
EXCEPT for summons
• all filing and service of pleadings, motions, and other documents to the
parties and their counsels in cases within certified judicial regions shall be
done through e-mail of PDF copies
• PROVIDED, filing and service of initiatory pleadings shall continue to be
governed by Rule 13 and other pertinent rules under the 2019 Amendments
to the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure subject to the requirement of
submission of PDF copies pursuant to Section 1, paragraph 3
Section 4. E-mail address of record
• Notice of Appearance:
• filed in all cases pending before the trial courts
• Filed prior OR together with the filing party or counsel’s first compliance with
Sec. 1 of this Resolution and shall likewise be served to all parties on the case
• Contents:
• Valid and professional e-mail addresses of all counsels, lawfirms, and their parties
• Valid Email
• Deemed valid: [local-part]@[domain] syntax and is capable of receiving e-
mails from other senders, especially those outside the address’s own domain.
• Serves as the e-mail addresses of record.
• Counsels of record are required to use their professional email accounts
• Personal, nonprofessional, or e-mail addresses off the record – PROHIBITED
• E-mail addresses for parties (complainant and respondent) – HIGHLY
ENCOURAGED
• Electronic Carbon Copies
• Transmittal of all submissions, filing or service by e-mail shall include, through
electronic carbon copy (CC:), all the email addresses of record
Effect of Non-use of e-mail address of record
• electronic transmittal is made with an e-mail address not of record, the entire
transmittal shall be deemed as not received until such time that the
transmittal is made using a valid e-mail address of record.
Obligation to Monitor e-mail address of record
• Counsel and parties have the obligation to regularly and diligently monitor
the inboxes
• No court shall accept as an excuse for any purpose that counsel or parties
have not checked the in boxes of their e-mail addresses of record lawyer who
neglects to check the inbox – subjected to DISCIPLINARY ACTION.
Section 5. Submission to official
court e-mail address.
• directory of the official e-mail addresses of the lower courts
• https://sc.judiciary .gov.ph/court-locator/
Section 6. Certification of judicial
regions for electronic filing
• OCA shall certify all judicial regions no later than 30 November 2024
• primary modes of filing, service and offer of evidence shall remain as
provided in the current Rules of Court
• until:
• revisions to Rule 13 and related provisions of the Rules of Court shall have
been promulgated; and
• Court orders that the principal manner of filing in a judicial region or in the
entire country shall be through the filing of authenticated PDF copies through
e-mail after one or all of the judicial regions are certified by the Office of the
Court Administrator (OCA),
Section 8. Electronic file format.
• PDF copy of the primary pleading or court submission must be
separated from the electronic copies in PDF of any accompanying
additional documents
• size of each PDF file must be reasonable
• If the primary manner of filing is through electronic transmission, the
form and substance of the contents of the PDF copy, as first filed, shall
be controlling.
• PDF file of the primary pleading or court submission shall have the
same filename as its designation
• The PDF of each accompanying additional document, if any, shall have
the same filename as the document's title, and must further be
appended with the designation of the primary pleading or court
submission to which they are attached or annexed. Finally, all
filenames must be appended with the docket number/s of the easels
for which they are being filed. All information shall be separated with
a hyphen (- ). Any special characters that cannot be used in a filename
by reason of technical limitations may be omitted entirely, or
substituted with an underscore (_),at the option of the one filing.
• Electronic copies of pleadings and other court submissions
transmitted to the court not in PDF; or as PDF files with password
protection or other encryption, or with embedded executable code or
scripts; or in archive files; or as corrupted files, shall be deemed as
NOT FILED.
• Electronic copies of additional acconi.panying documents transmitted
to the court not in PDF; or as PDF files with password protection or
other encryption, or with embedded executable code or scripts; or in
archive files; or as corrupted files shall be EXCLUDED from the records
or rollo of the case/s
Section 9. Transmittal e-mailformat.
• Subject:
• contain the docket number/s, case title/s and the designation of the primary
pleading or court submission being transmitted
• Indicate its nature.
• Body:
• prescribed format andvmust contain sufficient information to enable the
court to ascertain the following:
1. party or parties filing the pleading or other court submission
2. nature of the pleading or court submission
3. Party or parties against whom relief, if any, is sought and
4. nature of the relief sought:
• Primary manner of filing
• Filing date
• Case data, namely: (1) docket number/s; (2) case title/s; (3) name of the filing party; ( 4)
contact number/s of the filer; (5) other e-mail address of the filer, if any; and (6) a list of
the document titles of the attachments to the transmittal e-mail.
• Attachements:
• transmittal e-mail shall contain only PDF copies pertaining to one case
• consolidated cases with more than one docket number – one case only
• All files must be enclosed as individual attachments
• All PDF copies must be transmitted as direct attachments to the transmittal e-
mail, and not as external links to cloud storage, file-sharing sites, or similar
• PDF copies must not be contained in archive files and must not require
additional extraction or conversion into PDF
• In case the total file size of the documents exceeds the maximum size allowed
for attachments by the e-mail service provider being used by the one filing,
the filer sha!l transmit the electronic documents in several batches, but each
e-mail must be clearly marked by indicating in the subject the batch number
of the e-mail and the total batches of e-mails sent, following the prescribed
format in this Resolution.
• failure to file any document not as a direct attachment – deemed NOT FILED
• Retention requirement
• filing party or counsel must retain a copy of each transmittal e-mail, in any
form prescribed by pertinent rules on evidence, while the case is pending for
the inspection of the court or other parties when necessary
Section 10. Proof of electronic
transmittal.
• The receipt of an electronic copy shall be proved by its existence in the
case record or rollo, without prejudice to the presentation of the proof
of filing as provided in the 2019 Amendments to the 1997 Rules of Civil
Procedure. The clerk of court or branch clerk of court, with the
assistance of designated court personnel, shall have the primary
responsibility of ensuring that all pleadings and other court submissions
electronicaJly transmitted to their court are properly accounted for and
included in the case record or rollo. A copy in PDF of the transmittal e-
mail clearly showing the sender, and the date and time of receipt of the
e-mail by the receiving court, shall be included as the cover sheet of the
filing and shall form part of the case record or rollo