To strengthen digital reporting and safeguards, the Supreme Court has amended the 2024 rules on notarial practice to modernize and streamline notarial reporting in line with the Supreme Court’s (SC) Strategic Plan for Judicial Innovations (SPJI) 2022-2027.

In an En Banc Resolution in A.M. No. 02-8-13-SC dated March 4, 2024, the SC approved amendments to the 2004 Notarial Rules, specifically on the submission of copies of notarial entries and instruments acknowledged by notaries public.

Under the amended 2004 Notarial Rules, notaries public are now required to keep, in portable document format (PDF), a certified copy of each month’s notarial entries and the duplicate original copy of instruments acknowledged before them.

These should be emailed to the court clerk within the first 10 days of the following month using the notary public’s official email address. If there are no entries for the month, a formal statement confirming this must be submitted instead.

All PDF files must be sent as direct attachments to the transmittal email and must not be submitted as external links to cloud storage, file-sharing platforms, or similar sites. PDF files should not be compressed into archive formats such as ZIP (.zip) or RAR (.rar), and must not require additional extraction or conversion prior to access.

Notaries are prohibited from charging any fees for digitizing, transmitting, or processing these documents.

Courts retaining electronic duplicate original copies of notarized documents are directed to conduct an inventory and assessment of these materials.

A report on the results must be submitted to the Office of the Court Administrator, with a copy furnished to the Management Information Systems Office.

This aims to support the evaluation of the feasibility of digitally preserving essential notarial markers, such as signatures, thumbprints, and seals.

This latest reform represents a major step toward a more efficient, transparent, and accessible notarial system, in line with the Judiciary’s broader digital transformation goals.

The amended 2004 rules were published on 6 June 2025, in two newspapers of general circulation and shall become effective 15 days from publication or on 21 June 2025.