G.R. No. L-72645. June 30, 1987.
LUZON SURETY COMPANY, INC., petitioner, vs. INTERMEDIATE APPELLATE COURT, and EUGENIA G. PUYAT, GIL G. PUYAT, JR., ANTONIO G. PUYAT, VICENTE G. PUYAT, VICTOR G. PUYAT, JESUS-PUYAT-CONCEPCION, ALFONSO G. PUYAT, and EUGENIA PUYAT-JOSON, respondents.

FACTS

The petitioner, Luzon Surety Company, Inc., obtained a judgment against Gil Puyat and others in Civil Case No. 59506, which became final on April 13, 1967. This judgment was not enforced within the initial five-year period for execution by motion. Within the ten-year prescriptive period, the petitioner successfully instituted Civil Case No. 93268 to revive the 1967 judgment, securing a new decision on May 24, 1974. This revived judgment also remained unexecuted.
Upon Gil Puyat’s death, the petitioner filed a claim against his estate on September 1, 1982, seeking to enforce the monetary award. The estate administrators opposed, arguing the claim was barred by prescription. The Regional Trial Court dismissed the claim, a decision affirmed by the Intermediate Appellate Court. The appellate court held that the ten-year prescriptive period for enforcing a judgment under Article 1144(3) of the Civil Code commenced from the finality of the original 1967 judgment, not from the 1974 revived judgment.

ISSUE

Whether the ten-year prescriptive period for filing an action to enforce a judgment commences from the finality of the original judgment or from the finality of a subsequent judgment reviving the original one.

RULING

The Supreme Court ruled that the prescriptive period begins from the finality of the original judgment. The Court affirmed the appellate court’s decision, dismissing the petition. The legal framework involves Article 1144(3) of the Civil Code, which sets a ten-year period for actions upon a judgment, and Section 6, Rule 39 of the Rules of Court, which allows execution by motion within five years from finality and by independent action within the ten-year statutory period thereafter.
The Court, applying its precedent in Philippine National Bank v. Deloso, clarified that a revival action does not create a new prescriptive period. It merely interrupts or suspends the running of the original ten-year period. The ten-year clock starts ticking from the finality of the first judgment. The revival judgment itself is enforceable by motion within five years from its finality, but the overarching ten-year limit from the original judgment ultimately controls. Here, the original 1967 judgment prescribed in 1977. While the 1974 revival action was timely filed within that first ten-year window, the petitioner’s 1982 attempt to enforce it constituted a second revival, filed more than fifteen years after the 1967 finality, well beyond the allowable ten-year period. The defense of prescription was not waived, as all pertinent dates were evident from the petitioner’s own claim and evidence.