NATIONAL MARKETING CORPORATION, PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT, VS. MIGUEL D. TECSON, ET AL., DEFENDANTS, MIGUEL D. TECSON, DEFENDANT-APPELLEE, THE INSURANCE COMMISSIONER, PETITIONER.

This appeal has been certified to us by the Court of Appeals,
only one question of law being involved therein.

On November 14, 1955,
the Court of First Instance of Manila rendered judgment, in Civil Case No.
20520 thereof, entitled “Price Stabilization Corporation vs. Miguel D. Tecson and Alto Surety and Insurance Co., Inc.”, the dispositive part of which
reads as follows:

“For the foregoing consideration, the Court decides this case:

“(a) Ordering the defendants Miguel D. Tecson and Alto Surety & Insurance Co. Inc. to pay
jointly and severally plaintiff PRATRA the sum of P7, 200.00 plus 7% interest
from May 25, 1960 until the
amount is fully paid, plus P500. 00 for attorney’s fees, and plus costs;

“(b) Ordering defendant Miguel D. Tecson
to indemnify his co-defendant Alto Surety & Insurance Co. Inc. on the
cross-claim for all the amounts it would be made to pay in this decision, in
case defendant Alto Surety & Insurance Co. Inc. pay the amount adjudged to
plaintiff in this decision.  From the
date of such payment defendant Miguel D. Tecson would
pay the Alto Surety & Insurance Co. Inc., interest at 12% per annum until
Miguel D. Tecso has fully reimbursed plaintiff of the
said amount.”

Copy of this decision was, on November 21, 1955, served upon the defendants in said
case.  On December 21, 1965, the National
Marketing Corporation, as successor to all the properties, assets, rights, and choses in action of the Price Stabilization Corporation, as
plain­tiff in that case and judgment creditor therein, filed, with the same
court, a complaint, docketed as Civil Case No. 63701 thereof, against the same
defendants, for the revival of the judgment rendered in said Case No.
20520.  Defendant Miguel D. Tecson moved to dismiss said complaint, upon the ground of
lack of jurisdiction over the subject-matter thereof and prescription of
action.  Acting upon the motion and
plaintiff’s opposition thereto, said Court issued, on February 14, 1966, an order reading:

“Defendant Miguel Tecson seeks the
dismissal of the complaint on the ground of lack of jurisdiction and
prescription. As for lack of jurisdiction, as the amount involved is less than
P10,000 as actually these proceed­ings are a revival
of a decision issued by this same court, the matter of jurisdiction must be
admitted.  But as for
prescription.  Plaintiffs admit
the decision of this Court became final on December 21, 1955. 
This case was filed exactly on December
21, 1965 – but more than ten years have passed a year is a period
of 365 days (Art. 13, CCP). Plaintiff forgot that 1960, 1964 were both leap
years so that when this present case was filed it was filed two days too late.

“The complaint insofar as Miguel Tecson
is concerned is, therefore, dismissed as having prescribed.”

The National Marketing Corporation appealed from such order to
the Court of Appeals, which, on March
20, 1969, certified the case to this Court, upon the ground that
the only question therein raised is one of law, namely, whether or not the
present action for the revival of a judgment is barred by the statute of
limitations.

Pursuant to Art. 1144-(3) of our Civil
Code, an action upon a judgment “must be brought within ten years from the
time the right of action accrues,” which, in the language of Art. 1152 of
the same Code, “commences from the time the judgment sought to be revived
has be­come final.” This, in turn, took place on December 21, 1955, or thirty (30) days from
notice of the judgment – which was received by the defendants herein on November 21, 1955 – no appeal having
been taken therefrom.^[1]
The issue is thus confined to the date on which ten (10) years from December 21, 1955 expired.

Plaintiff-appellant alleges that it was December 21, 1965, but appellee
Tecson maintains otherwise, because “when the
laws speak of years x x x
it shall be understood that years are of three hundred sixty-five days
each” – according to Art. 13 of our Civil Code – and, 1960 and 1964 being
leap years, the month of February in both had 29 days, so that ten (10) years
of 365 days each, or an aggregate of 3,650 days, from December 21, 1955, expired on December 19, 1965.  The lower court accepted this view in its
appealed order of dismissal.

Plaintiff-appellant insists that the same “is erroneous, be­cause
a year means a calendar year (Statutory Construction, Interpre­tation of
Laws, by Crowford, p. 383) and since what is being
computed here is the number of years, a calendar year should be used as the
basis of computation.  There is no
question that when it is not a leap year, December 21 to December 21 of the
following year is one year, If the extra day in a leap year is not a day of the
year, because it is the 366th day, then to what year does it belong?  Certainly, it must belong to the year where
it falls and, therefore, that the 366 days cons­titute one year.”2

The very conclusion thus reached by appellant shows that its
theory contravenes the explicit provision of Art. 13 of the
Civil Code of the Philippines, limiting the connotation of each “year” – as the term
is used in our laws – to 365 days.  Indeed, prior to the approval of the
Civil Code of Spain, the Supreme Court thereof had held, on March 30, 1887,
that, when the law spoke of months, it meant a “natural” month or
“solar” month, in the absence of express provision to the contrary.  Such provision was incorporated into the
Civil Code of Spain, subsequently promulgated. 
Hence, the same Supreme Court declared3 that,
pursuant to Art. 7 of said Code, “whenever months x x
x are referred to in the law, it shall be understood
that the months are of 30 days”, not the “natural”,
“solar” or “calendar” months, unless they are
“designated by name”, in which case “they shall be computed by
the actual number of days they have.” This concept was, later, modified  in
the Philippines,
by Section 13 of the Revised Admi­nistrative Code, pursuant to which,
“month shall be understood to re­fer to a calendar month.”4 In the language of this Court, in People vs. Del
Rosario5, “with the approval of the Civil Code of the
Philip­pines (Republic Act 386) x x x we have reverted
to the provisions of the Spanish Civil Code in accordance with which a month is
to be con­sidered as the regular 30-day month x x x and not the solar or civil
month,” with the particularity that, whereas the Spanish Code merely
mentioned “months, days or nights,” ours has added thereto the term “years”
and explicitly ordains that “it shall be understood that years are of
three hundred sixty-five days.”

Although some members of the Court are inclined to think that
this legislation is not realistic, for failure to conform with
or­dinary experience or practice, the theory of plaintiff-appellant herein
cannot be upheld without ignoring, if not nullifying, Art. 13 of our Civil
Code, and reviving Section 13 of the Revised Administrative Code, thereby
engaging in judicial legislation, and, in effect, re­pealing an act of
Congress.  If public interest demands a
reversion to the policy embodied in the Revised Administrative Code, this may
be done through legislative process, not by judicial decree.

WHEREFORE, the order appealed from should be, as it is
hereby affirmed, without costs.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Concepcion, C.J., Dizon,
Makalintal, Sanchez, Castro, Fernando, Capistrano, Teehankee and Barredo, JJ., concur.

Reyes and Zaldivar, JJ., are on official leave abroad.

^[1]
Sec. 1, Rule 39, in relation to Sec. 3, Rule 31, Rules of
Court.

2
Underscoring ours.

3
Decision of April 6, 1895.

4
Guzman v. Lichauco, 42 Phil. 292; Gutierrez v.
Carpio, 53 Phil. 334, 335-336.

5
97 Phil. 70-71.