OCA CIRCULARS NO. 27-2002, June 25, 2002

The guidelines set forth in the 16 October 2001
Resolution of the Supreme Court in Administrative Matter No. 01-1-07-SC
(Re: Guidelines in the Accreditation of Newspapers and in the
Distribution of Legal Notices and Advertisements for Publication) seek
to address the confusion in the implementation of Presidential Decree
No. 1079 (Revising and Consolidating All Laws and Decrees Regulating
Publication of Judicial Notices, Advertisements for the Public Bidding,
Notices of Auction Sales and Other Similar Notices). The purposes and
the amount they could charge for publishing judicial and the legal
notices. To this end, if require applicants for accreditation to submit
with their applications the necessary documents to ensure faithful
compliance with the provisions of P. D. No. 1079.

For the effective implementation of the guidelines
and its avowed purpose, Executive Judges should require newspapers of
periodicals, if they have not done so, to submit new applications for
accreditation supported by documents required and evaluate such
applications in the light of the new rules.

All applications for accreditation under the new
guidelines should be submitted on or before the 31st of July 2002 and
Executive Judges should make final determination thereon on or before
the 15th of September 2002.

Further, the appears to be confusion in the interpretation of the following provisions of the subject guidelines:

1. paragraphs (b) and (c), Section 3, provided that:

“A newspaper of periodical which has its principal
office in any of the cities or municipalities in the National Capital
Judicial Region may be accredited by any one or all the Regional Trial
Court Executive Judges therein, provided that it satisfies all the
requirements for accreditation.”

To clarify, once accredited in a particular RTC
station, newspaper or periodicals may still apply for accreditation in
other RTC stations in the municipalities and cities within the province
where its principal office is located.

For example, newspaper “A” has its principal office
in Davao City and has been accredited by the RTC Executive Judge
therein. In this case, “A” may still apply for accreditation in RTC
Digos City and RTC Basalan which city and the actual place where “A” is
edited and published is immaterial because Presidential Decree No. 1079
states that the principal office of a newspaper or periodical is deemed
to be the place where it is edited and published. What is important is
that “A” is a general circulation not only in Davao city but also in the
respective territorial jurisdictions of RTC Digos City and RTC
Bansalan.

2. Section 6 (c) of the guidelines provides that:

“SEC. 6. (T)he newspaper or periodical must have been regularly
published for at least one (1) year before the date of the application;
and, after accreditation, before the date of each and every raffle
participated in by the accredited publication. A newspaper or periodical
is regularly published if it comes out with 365 or 52 issues those
issued daily or weekly, respectively.”

The periodical contemplated refers to that is
immediately before the date of the application and before the date of
each and every raffle, regardless of the date it registered with any
government agency. So that a newspaper or periodical applying for
accreditation on June 1, 2002 must have been regularly issued from June
1, 2001 to May 31, 2002, and should it participate in a raffle schedule
on December 15, 2002, it must have been regularly issued from December
15, 2001 to December 14, 2002.

3. 3. Section 7 provides that:

“SEC. 7. Absence of qualified newspapers or
periodicals.— In the event that there is no newspaper or periodical
qualified to be accredited in the station of the Regional Trial Court,
the qualified publication in the nearest city or province may be
accredited.”

This section does not imply that an accredited newspaper may
immediately be allowed to publish legal notices in RTC stations where
there are no qualified periodicals as it still has to apply for
accreditation therein.

For information and guidance.

25 June 2002