Short answer. Yes. Service may be made through methods consistent with established international conventions to which the Philippines is a party, as an available alternative to the modes otherwise set out elsewhere in this Rule for reaching a defendant who currently resides outside the country.
What the law says
Service may be made through methods which are consistent with established international conventions to which the Philippines is a party.
Rule 14, Section 9 — Service consistent with international conventions. Read the full provision →
A treaty-based avenue for service
This section acknowledges that summons does not always have to travel exclusively through the purely domestic modes spelled out elsewhere in this Rule. It allows service to be made through methods consistent with established international conventions to which the Philippines is a party, recognizing that cross-border service is sometimes governed by treaty frameworks entered into between nations rather than purely local Philippine procedure by itself alone.
Why this option exists alongside the domestic modes
Defendants located abroad raise practical difficulties that the ordinary modes of service — personal delivery, substituted service, mail within the Philippines — are not always well designed to solve efficiently or reliably. International conventions the Philippines has joined typically set out their own recognized channels for transmitting judicial documents between the various signatory states involved, and this particular provision lets a party actually use those established treaty channels when applicable to the case.
How it relates to the other service provisions
This is one of several tools the Rules make available when a defendant cannot simply be served through domestic means, alongside extraterritorial service by leave of court and specific service arrangements for entities like foreign private juridical corporations. Rather than displacing those other available modes, this provision adds a further, treaty-based option wherever an applicable international convention genuinely exists and actually covers the particular situation at hand. A plaintiff attempting this route bears the burden of showing both that the defendant's country is actually a party to a convention the Philippines has also joined, and that the method used tracks what that convention actually authorizes, since simply invoking 'international convention' in the abstract is not enough to establish valid service.
What the rule leaves unspecified
The text does not itself name which particular conventions apply, nor does it spell out their individual procedures in detail — it simply authorizes recourse to whatever established international convention the Philippines happens to be a party to in a given case. Which convention is actually relevant, and precisely how its own procedure works in practice, depends on the specific treaty in question and the particular foreign country where the defendant is actually found. Because the convention route sits alongside, rather than replaces, the domestic modes, a party who mistakenly assumes it is the only option available for a foreign defendant may overlook other avenues, such as extraterritorial service by leave of court, that remain equally valid where no applicable treaty covers the defendant's country.
Related provisions
- Rule 14, Section 9 — Service consistent with international conventions
- Rule 14, Section 8 — Service upon prisoners
- Rule 14, Section 10 — Service upon minors and incompetents