G.R. No. L-20236 July 30, 1965
PHILIPPINE NATIONAL BANK, plaintiff-appellant, vs. JOAQUIN BONDOC, defendant-appellee.

FACTS

On June 29, 1949, the Philippine National Bank (PNB) obtained a judgment against Joaquin M. Bondoc in Civil Case No. 8040. This judgment was never executed. After five years, upon PNB’s instance, the judgment was revived in Civil Case No. 30663 on February 20, 1957. This revived judgment was also not enforced within the next five years. On June 7, 1962, PNB instituted Civil Case No. 50601 for the enforcement of the judgment rendered in Civil Case No. 30663. The lower court dismissed the complaint on grounds of prescription and lack of cause of action, holding that the right to revive the judgment had prescribed as more than ten years had elapsed since the original 1949 judgment, and that neither the Code of Civil Procedure nor the New Civil Code provides for the revival of a revived judgment.

ISSUE

Whether or not a revived judgment may itself be revived.

RULING

Yes, a revived judgment may itself be revived. Section 6, Rule 39 of the Rules of Court makes no distinction as to the kind of judgment that may be revived by an independent action. A judgment rendered on a complaint for revival of a previous judgment is a new judgment, and the plaintiff’s rights rest on this new judgment, not the previous one. The purpose of revival is to give a creditor a new right of enforcement from the date of revival. The prescriptive period for enforcing a judgment is ten years from the time it becomes final, pursuant to Article 1144(3) of the New Civil Code. The prescriptive period for the revived judgment (Civil Case No. 30663) is counted from its finality in 1957, not from the finality of the original 1949 judgment. Since the action to enforce the 1957 judgment was filed in 1962, it was well within the ten-year prescriptive period. The order of dismissal was set aside and the case remanded for further proceedings.