Short answer. Yes. Article 1155 interrupts prescription the moment an action is filed before the court, and filing is one of only three recognized ways to interrupt it. The interruption happens at filing itself — the case does not need to be resolved or even finished for the interruption to count.
What the law says
The prescription of actions is interrupted when they are filed before the court, when there is a written extrajudicial demand by the creditors, and when there is any written acknowledgment of the debt by the debtor.
Civil Code, Article 1155 — The Three Ways to Interrupt Prescription. Read the full provision →
Filing itself is the interrupting act
Article 1155 lists filing in court as one of the recognized ways to stop the prescriptive clock: the prescription of actions is interrupted when they are filed before the court, when there is a written extrajudicial demand by the creditors, and when there is any written acknowledgment of the debt by the debtor. The interruption is tied to the act of filing, not to any later outcome. If your case was filed while the period was still running, the clock stopped at that moment, regardless of how long the litigation has taken since.
Three ways, and filing is only one of them
The article gives creditors three separate, independent routes to interrupt prescription: filing the action in court, sending a written extrajudicial demand, and obtaining a written acknowledgment of the debt from the debtor. Any one of these, on its own, is enough — a creditor does not need all three. Knowing that filing is one recognized route matters especially where a demand letter was never sent or the debtor never acknowledged anything in writing, because the case itself can still be the act that preserved the claim.
A pending case does not undo the interruption
Nothing in Article 1155 conditions the interruption on the case actually finishing, or finishing in the creditor's favor, within any particular time. The interruption occurs when the action is filed, and a case that remains pending simply means the underlying dispute has not yet been resolved — it does not mean prescription resumed running while the court has not decided it. What matters for this rule is the timing of the filing relative to the original prescriptive period, not the pace of the proceeding afterward.
Why this matters if you filed close to the deadline
If you were worried the case would not be decided before the prescriptive period lapsed, that worry does not affect whether the period was interrupted — filing before the deadline is what counts, not deciding before the deadline. This is precisely why creditors file suit as a deadline approaches instead of waiting for a decision: the statute protects the claim from that point forward regardless of how long the court process eventually takes to conclude.
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.
- Spouses Flavio P. Bautista vs. Premiere Development Bank, G.R. No. 201881, July 15, 2024 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Philippine Bank of Communications vs. Diamond Seafoods Corp., et al, G.R. No. 142420, January 29, 2007 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- National Union of Workers in Hotel Restaurant and Allied Industries , Philippine Plaza Chapter vs. Philippine Plaza Holdings, Inc, G.R. No. 177524, July 23, 2014 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- William Alain Miailhe vs. Court of Appeals, et al, G.R. No. 108991, March 20, 2001 — read the decision on LawPhil →