Short answer. The Court of Appeals must resolve a motion for reconsideration within ninety days counted from the date the court declares the motion submitted for resolution — not from the date it was filed, and not from the date of the original judgment.

What the law says

In the Court of Appeals, a motion for reconsideration shall be resolved within ninety days from the date when the court declares it submitted for resolution.

Rule 52, Section 3 — Resolution of motion. Read the full provision →

When the clock actually starts

Rule 52, Section 3 sets a ninety-day deadline for the Court of Appeals to act on a motion for reconsideration, but the trigger is a specific court act: the declaration that the motion is submitted for resolution. That declaration usually follows the filing of any required comment or opposition from the other side, or the expiration of the period given to file one. Until that point is reached, the ninety-day clock has not started, even if the motion itself was filed months earlier.

Why the distinction matters

Litigants sometimes assume the ninety days run from the date they filed the motion, which can create confusion about whether a resolution is overdue. Because the period is tied to submission rather than filing, the practical timeline for getting a ruling depends heavily on how quickly pleadings on the motion are completed and how promptly the court issues the submission order. This ninety-day period binds the Court of Appeals itself as the deciding body; it does not bind the moving party or the adverse party, whose own obligations, such as filing the motion or any comment on it, are governed by separate timing rules rather than this section's ninety-day benchmark.

What happens if the period lapses

This section fixes the internal deadline the court is expected to meet but does not itself spell out a remedy for a party if the ninety days pass without action; that is a matter of the court's internal administrative rules and, in appropriate cases, a mandamus-type remedy addressed elsewhere in procedural law, not something this section states. What the section does make clear is that the ninety-day period is the court's own benchmark for timely action, so a party monitoring how long a motion has been pending should first confirm whether the submission order has actually issued before assuming the deadline has been missed. In practice, this makes the submission order itself a useful reference point: once it is issued, a party has a concrete date from which to count the ninety days and gauge whether the court is on pace to rule within the period this section sets.

Related provisions

Note. Statute text quoted on this page is reproduced from the official enactment and is linked to the full provision. The explanation around it is general legal information from Vivas & Nobles Law Office, not legal advice. Whether it applies to your situation depends on facts only a lawyer reviewing them can assess.