G.R. No. L-104776, Dec. 5, 1994
- GENERAL RULE: A foreign procedural law will not be applied in the forum.
- EXCEPTION: When the country of the forum has a "borrowing statute," the country of the forum will apply the foreign statute of limitations.
- EXCEPTION TO THE EXCEPTION: The court of the forum will not enforce any foreign claim obnoxious to the forum's public policy.
FACTS:
Cadalin et al. are overseas contract workers recruited by respondent-appellant AIBC for its accredited foreign principal, Brown & Root, on various dates from 1975 to 1983. As such, they were all deployed at various projects in several countries in the Middle East as well as in Southeast Asia, in Indonesia and Malaysia. The case arose when their overseas employment contracts were terminated even before their expiration. Under Bahrain law, where some of the complainants were deployed, the prescriptive period for claims arising out of a contract of employment is one year.
ISSUE:
- Whether it is the Bahrain law on prescription of action based on the Amiri Decree No. 23 of 1976 or a Philippine law on prescription that shall be the governing law
HELD:
As a general rule, a foreign procedural law will not be applied in the forum. Procedural matters, such as service of process, joinder of actions, period and requisites for appeal, and so forth, are governed by teh laws of the forum. This is true even if the action is based upon a foreign substantive law.
A law on prescription of actions is sui generis in Conflict of Laws in the sense that it may be viewed either as procedural or substantive, depending on the characterization given such a law.
However, the characterization of a statute into a procedural or substantive law becomes irrelevant when the country of the forum has a “borrowing statute.” Said statute has the practical effect of treating the foreign statute of limitation as one of substance. A “borrowing statute” directs the state of the forum to apply the foreign statute of limitations to the pending claims based on a foreign law. While there are several kinds of “borrowing statutes,” one form provides that an action barred by the laws of the place where it accrued, will not be enforced in the forum even though the local statute has not run against it. Section 48 of our Code of Civil Procedure is of this kind. Said Section provides:
“If by the laws of the state or country where the cause of action arose, the action is barred, it is also barred in the Philippine Islands.”
In the light of the 1987 Constitution, however, Section 48 cannot be enforced ex propio vigore insofar as it ordains the application in this jurisdiction of Section 156 of the Amiri Decree No. 23 of 1976.
The courts of the forum will not enforce any foreign claims obnoxious to the forum’s public policy. To enforce the one-year prescriptive period of the Amiri Decree No. 23 of 1976 as regards the claims in question would contravene the public policy on the protection to labor.
