I told the other side I would not raise prescription — am I stuck with that promise?

Already obtained, or still running

The line the article draws is about timing. A period that has already run in your favour has produced something you hold, and like other things you hold you may give it up: you may renounce prescription already obtained. A period still running has produced nothing yet, and the article will not let you sign away the right to prescribe in the future. The reason is that prescription is not purely a private convenience, and a rule that could be contracted out of at the start of every transaction would stop doing its work altogether.

Capacity to alienate tells you what kind of act this is

The article confines renunciation to persons with capacity to alienate property. Giving up a completed prescription is treated as a disposition, not as a procedural courtesy, so it requires the same capacity as giving away the thing itself. That matters where the renunciation was made by an agent, an officer of a company, an administrator or somebody acting for another person. The question is not only whether the words were said, but whether the person who said them could dispose of the right at all.

Renunciation does not have to be in words

The article provides that prescription is deemed to have been tacitly renounced when the renunciation results from acts which imply the abandonment of the right acquired. Acknowledging the debt, asking for time, making a part payment or negotiating on the footing that the claim is live can each carry that implication, which is why a friendly letter written without advice sometimes costs more than the dispute itself. Look at what was done as well as at what was written, and on both sides of the exchange.

Date everything before you argue about it

Establish when the period would have been completed and when the statement or conduct relied on occurred, because a statement made before completion is not a renunciation of a completed prescription at all. Note as well that Article 1114 lets creditors and others interested in making prescription effective avail themselves of it notwithstanding the express or tacit renunciation by the debtor, so a renunciation does not necessarily settle the matter even between the two people who made it.

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.

• Hydro Resources Contractors Corporation vs. National Irrigation Administration, G.R. No. 160215, November 10, 2004 — read the decision on LawPhil →

Related provisions

• Civil Code, Article 1114 — Creditors May Invoke Prescription
• Civil Code, Article 1155 — The Three Ways to Interrupt Prescription