Short answer. Yes. Article 1936 lets consumable goods such as food or wine be the subject of a commodatum, provided the purpose is not to consume them — as when they are lent merely for exhibition. Once consumption becomes the point, it ceases to be a loan for use.
What the law says
Consumable goods may be the subject of commodatum if the purpose of the contract is not the consumption of the object, as when it is merely for exhibition.
Civil Code, Article 1936 — Consumables in Commodatum. Read the full provision →
A loan for use turns on returning the very same thing
Commodatum is the gratuitous loan of a thing so that the borrower may use it and then return the identical thing he received. That defining feature is why consumables ordinarily fall outside it: you cannot drink a bottle of wine or eat a loaf of bread and then hand back the same bottle or loaf. Consuming the object is flatly inconsistent with an obligation to return it, so an arrangement over food or drink would normally be a different contract — a simple loan of fungibles, where only an equivalent quantity and quality comes back rather than the original items themselves.
The exhibition exception
Article 1936 carves out the case where the consumable is borrowed for something other than being eaten or drunk: Consumable goods may be the subject of commodatum if the purpose of the contract is not the consumption of the object, as when it is merely for exhibition. A vintner who lends rare bottles to dress a film set, a baker who lends decorative loaves for a shop window, a caterer who lends fruit for a photograph — each hands over consumable goods, yet none of them lends them to be consumed. It is the purpose, not the perishable nature of the goods, that controls.
What the borrower may and may not do
Because the loan is for display and not for consumption, the borrower's right is confined to that use. He may exhibit the wine; he may not open and pour it. Doing so is not merely a breach of the borrowing terms — it destroys the only footing on which a consumable could be lent for use at all, and the borrower becomes answerable for the value of whatever he consumed. His obligation remains to return the identical items, unopened and unspoiled, in the condition they were received, allowing only for the ordinary handling that displaying them involves.
What settles which contract you have
The dividing line is the agreed purpose, so record it. If the arrangement is genuinely for exhibition, put that in writing — a short note that the goods are lent for display and to be returned intact protects both sides and stops the loan being mistaken for a sale or a gift of the goods. Where the parties in fact expect the items to be used up, no label turns the deal into commodatum; the substance of what was agreed, not the word chosen for it, decides whether the borrower must return the same thing or only its equivalent.
Cases citing this provision
These Supreme Court decisions cite the provision above. We list them so you can read them yourself; the summaries of what each decided are not ours to give.
- Producer's Bank of the Philippines (now First International Bank) vs. Hon. Court of Appeals, et al, G.R. No. 115324, February 19, 2003 — read the decision on LawPhil →