by Atty. Julius Gregory B. Delgado

NOTARIZING A DOCUMENT WITH PRINTED SIGNATURE AND FAILURE TO INDICATE SERIAL NUMBER OF NOTARIAL COMMISSION ARE GROUNDS FOR REVOCATION OF A NOTARIAL COMMISSION

Do not be offended if your lawyer-friend asks you to come to his or her office for notarization favor. You may find it burdensome but for your lawyer-friend, it is his or her notarial commission at stake. When he or she asks you to come to his or her office, it is not automatically that he or she wants to assess you of notarial fees (although sometimes it is). It may be as simple as he or she is just complying with the 2004 Rules on Notarial Practice which requires that the affiant or person executing a document must personally appear before the Notary Public.

On 18 November 2020, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in A.C. No. 9417 entitled “John Paul Kiener vs. Atty. Ricardo R. Amores”. In the said case, the petitioner filed an administrative case before the Office of the Bar Confidant against the respondent for supposedly notarizing a Secretary’s Certificate in violation of the 2004 Rules on Notarial Practice. The Secretary’s Certificate was attached to a criminal Complaint for Estafa filed by the respondent’s client, Pado’s Divecamp Resort Corporation, against the petitioner. The petitioner claims that that the respondent Notary Public notarized the Secretary’s Certificate even if the signature of the Corporate Secretary was merely printed. The petitioner also claims that respondent failed to indicate the serial number of his Notarial Commission as required by the 2004 Rules on Notarial Practice.

The Investigating Commissioner held Atty. Amores liable but the Integrated Bar of the Philippines Board of Governors, in an extended decision, reversed and set aside the findings of the Commissioner. In the Decision dated 18 November 2020, the Supreme Court reversed the ruling of the IBP Board of Governors and directed the revocation of the Notarial Commission of Atty. Amores. The Supreme Court also barred Atty. Amores from reapplying for a Notarial Commission for a period of two (2) years. The Supreme Court reiterated the basic doctrine that “notarization is not an empty, meaningless routinary act, but one invested with substantive public interest as notarization converts a private document into a public document, making it admissible in evidence without further proof of its authenticity.”

In ruling that Atty. Amores failed to strictly comply with the 2004 Rules on Notarial Practice, the Supreme Court held:

“To repeat, Atty. Amores failed to observe the requirement of physical presence when he notarized the Secretary’s Certificate. Upon examination of the document, and as admitted by Atty. Amores himself, Irene’s signature in the Secretary’s Certificate attached to the complaint-affidavit in the criminal case was merely printed. In short, it was not an actual handwritten signature of Irene. Atty. Amores’ defense that Irene physically signed one copy that was subsequently reproduced the notarized, does not convince this Court. Atty. Amores did not present any proof that Irene was indeed physically in his presence upon signing and notarization of the document. It goes without saying that Irene had signed the document elsewhere, scanned it, and then sent it electronically to Atty. Amores for the latter to print, reproduce, notarize, and use for the designated purpose. If indeed Irene had personally appeared before him, he should have asked her right then and there to affix her signature to each and every copy of the document, not just to one copy.

It is also worth mentioning that Atty. Amores failed to indicate the serial number of his notarial commission in the concluding part of the notarial certificate of the Secretary’s Certificate as required by the rules.” Hence, in this case, the Supreme Court created a precedent that notarization over a document which signature is merely printed creates a disputable presumption that the affiant did not personally appear before the Notary Public. We can say it is disputable as it may be shown by other means that the affiant was indeed present when the document was notarized by the Notary Public. Thus, it is the reason why a Notary Public will ask you to sign a Notarial Book in a row indicating the document notarized. Finally, although an obiter dictum, the Supreme Court held that it is a violation of the rules to rely on a Community Tax Certificate as proof of identity of the affiant. The Supreme Court held that while respondent used a CTC as competent evidence of identity, it is not a violation at the time of the performance of the notarial act in 2007 as the use of CTCs was prohibited only in 2008 by virtue of an amendment to the Rules on Notarial Practice as clarified in the case of Baylon vs. Almo, A.C. No. 6962 (25 June 2008).