Remote Online Notary Service Availability in the Philippines

A comprehensive legal briefing (as of 30 April 2025)

1. Background: Classical Notarization in Philippine Law

Statutory foundations
- Civil Code (1950) – requires many juridical acts (e.g., real-estate conveyances, powers of attorney, wills) to be in a public instrument acknowledged before a notary.
- Revised Administrative Code grants the Supreme Court plenary power to regulate the practice of law and notarial work.
- 2004 Rules on Notarial Practice (RNP) – the main secondary legislation; it requires the personal appearance of the signatory before the notary and the use of a bound notarial register.
Core principles under the RNP
- Personal appearance and physical presentation of competent evidence of identity are indispensable.
- Territorial limitation – a notary may act only within the city or province named in the commission.
- Paper-based archiving – every instrument is stamped, signed, embossed, and entered in the register, with monthly reports to the Clerk of Court.

Historically, these features have made Philippine notarization a wholly in-person, paper system—unlike the more flexible e-notary or remote-online-notary (RON) models in several U.S. states.

2. Pre-digital building blocks

Enactment	Key Points for Remote Notarization
Republic Act No. 8792 – E-Commerce Act (2000)	Recognizes electronic documents and electronic signatures as legally valid and admissible in evidence. It does not override specific statutory requirements for notarization.
Supreme Court A.M. No. 01-7-01-SC (Rules on Electronic Evidence, 2001)	Lays down authentication rules for e-docs but is silent on the notarial act itself.
RA 11032 (Ease of Doing Business Act, 2018)	Pushes agencies toward digital transactions; several LGUs now accept e-signed affidavits but still demand a wet-ink notarization or apostille for higher-risk documents.

These rules opened the door for electronic execution but never removed the “personal appearance” requirement for notarization.

3. Pandemic-Era Experiments (2020 – 2023)

3.1 Supreme Court Interim Measures

During COVID-19, mobility restrictions forced the judiciary to improvise:

OCA Circular No. 45-2020 (27 April 2020) – Allowed video-conferenced hearings but expressly excluded notarization.
OCA Circular No. 112-2020 (19 November 2020) – Gave trial courts power to receive e-sworn statements using videoconferencing provided the witness affirms before the judge; again, it did not amend the RNP.

3.2 “Cebu Pilot” and Local Practice

Several Cebu City notaries, with the tacit tolerance of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP)-Cebu, began notarizing Affidavits of Loss and SPA over Zoom. They complied by:

Witnessing the signing in real time;
Requiring the client to courier the original wet-signed copy together with IDs;
Affixing the notarial stamp only after receiving the hard copy.

While never formally approved, courts have thus far admitted such documents because the physical original ultimately bore the notarial seal and register entry, satisfying the RNP.

3.3 Proposed Amendments

IBP Resolution (March 2021) – Urged the Court to amend the RNP to permit real-time remote appearance coupled with tamper-evident e-signatures and blockchain-backed journals.
SC Committee Draft (released October 2023 for comment) –
- defines “electronic notarization” (e-NOTAR) and “remote online notarization” (RON);
- allows identity proofing through two-factor video verification plus device-based biometrics;
- retains the territorial commission but expands it to “any place where either the notary or signatory is physically located within Philippine jurisdiction during the video session.”
- mandates a cloud-based notarial register hosted in the Judiciary Cloud.

As of 30 April 2025, the draft is still pending full Court approval.

4. Legislative Initiatives

Bill	Salient Features	Status (as of Apr 2025)
House Bill 4334 (17th Congress, “E-Notary Act”)	Borrowed heavily from Virginia’s 2011 RON law; required encryption, video archiving for 10 years; covered both Filipinos on-shore and OFWs abroad.	Died at committee (2019).
Senate Bill 1310 (19th Congress, “Modern Notarial Services Act”)	Consolidated IBP & DICT proposals; distinguishes e-Notary (same-room, paperless) from RON (remote).	Pending second reading since Sept 2024; enjoys DOLE and DFA support due to OFW demand.
HOUSE Bill 8018 (19th Congress, “Digital Civil Transactions Act”)	Omnibus framework for e-signatures, credentials, and trust providers; includes a chapter on “Qualified Trust Service Providers for RON.”	Technical working group ongoing; targeted plenary by late 2025.

Passage of any of these will require complementary court rules because the power to “promulgate rules concerning the admission to the practice of law” lies exclusively with the Supreme Court (Art. VIII, Sec. 5(5), Constitution).

5. Current Practical Landscape (What can and cannot be done?)

Scenario	Legality Today	Notes
Intra-Philippines RON (signer in QC, notary in Makati, via Zoom, purely digital)	❌ Not yet permissible. RNP requires physical presence & wet-ink.
Hybrid Remote (video witnessing + courier of wet-ink original)*	⚠️ Practised de facto; generally accepted by banks & LGUs, but legal risk remains because signer technically did not appear before notary at the moment of signing.
OFW executes doc abroad; Philippine consul performs e-notarization over video	❌ Consular notarization still demands personal appearance or mail-in acknowledgment under DFA rules.
Electronic corporate filings with SEC that require notarized docs	✅ SEC’s One-Day Submission and E-Registration Portal (OneSEC) accepts digitally notarized PDFs only if they originated from the Enhanced Community Quarantine windows (2020-21); new filings must revert to wet-ink until rules change.

*“Hybrid remote” = pandemic workaround described in §3.2.

6. Key Legal Issues Hindering Full RON Roll-Out

Personal Appearance vs. Digital Presence
The sine qua non of notarization is “in-person” witnessing. Any amendment must reconcile this with the E-Commerce Act’s principle of “functional equivalence.”
Jurisdiction & Venue
A notary’s commission is tied to geography; RON collapses location boundaries. Draft rules tether legality to where either the notary or signer sits—mirroring the Uniform Law on Notarial Acts (USA, 2018).
Identity Assurance
Philippine IDs (e.g., national PhilSys card, e-passport, UMID) already have NFC chips. Proposed RON uses:
- Level 2 or higher digital certificates issued by a DICT-licensed Certification Authority;
- liveness + facial matching.
Tamper-Evident Records & Archival
Long-term cloud storage (10 + years) must comply with the Data Privacy Act. Judiciary Cloud aims to provide an immutable ledger and controlled access for subpoena.
Recognition Abroad
Apostille Convention (PH acceded 2019) still assumes paper public documents. The Hague Conference is pilot-testing e-Apostilles; DFA-OSEA awaits guidance.

7. Comparative Glimpse: U.S. & ASEAN

Jurisdiction	Model	Lessons for PH
Virginia (2011)	First statewide RON; uses third-party platforms (DocuSign Notary, Notarize).	Robust audit trail + video retention reduces fraud.
Singapore (2020)	Notary Public Act still wet-ink; experiment with “e-Notary sandbox” limited to corporate resolutions.	Government-hosted portal enhances trust.
Indonesia (2023)	UU ITE amendments empower e-PPAT (Land Deed Officials) to sign over video with qualified e-signatures.	Uses PKI certificates from government CA; relevant for PH land conveyancing.

8. Outlook for 2025-2026

Supreme Court Action – En banc deliberations on the 2023 draft have been calendared thrice but deferred pending DICT security audit. Observers expect promulgation by Q1 2026, coinciding with mandatory roll-out of the PhilSys e-ID.
Legislature – Senate Bill 1310 enjoys cross-party backing; with the House counterpart, bicameral approval may arrive in late 2025.
Technology Vendors – Two Philippine start-ups (Notaryo.ph and SignSure) have DICT sandbox accreditation for qualified electronic signatures and are lobbying for RON pilot authority.
International Acceptance – DFA is drafting rules for electronic apostille once the Hague e-APP Phase 2 becomes universally available (tentative 2026).

9. Practical Advice (Until RON Is Formalized)

Use the “Hybrid Remote” method cautiously – keep the full video recording and courier receipts; add a notarized Affidavit of Compliance explaining the process.
Prefer consular notarization for OFWs – though inconvenient, it is bulletproof under Philippine law.
Employ qualified digital signatures for intra-corporate documents that do not have to be notarized (Board Resolutions, some procurement bids).
Monitor IBP & SC announcements – once new rules are issued, expect transition clauses requiring notaries to apply for an e-Notary commission, pass a cybersecurity exam, and obtain a hardware token.

10. Conclusion

As of 30 April 2025, true remote online notarization is not yet legally operative in the Philippines. The pandemic accelerated experimentation, and both the Supreme Court and Congress now have concrete drafts that would finally modernize notarization. Practitioners should track these developments closely, invest in compliant e-signature infrastructure, and—until formal rules are in force—continue to meet personal-appearance and wet-ink requirements or rely on carefully documented workarounds.