Short answer. Published Supreme Court decisions and final resolutions are compiled as the Philippine Reports, while those of the Court of Appeals form the Court of Appeals Reports. Each volume has a table of cases and a subject index, runs at least seven hundred pages, and is printed on good paper and consecutively numbered.
What the law says
The published decisions and final resolutions of the Supreme Court shall be called "Philippine Reports," while those of the Court of Appeals shall be known as the "Court of Appeals Reports." Each volume thereof shall contain a table of the cases reported and the cases cited in the opinions, with a complete alphabetical index of the subject matters of the volume. It shall consist of not less than seven hundred pages printed upon good paper, well bound and numbered consecutively in the order of the volumes published.
Rule 55, Section 3 — General make. Read the full provision →
Two separate named series
Rule 55, Section 3 gives the official compiled reports their names: Supreme Court decisions and final resolutions are gathered into the Philippine Reports, while Court of Appeals rulings form a separate series called the Court of Appeals Reports. This naming keeps the two courts' official publications distinct from each other and from unofficial or commercial case reporters, so a citation to one series is not mistaken for a citation to the other.
Required finding aids in each volume
Each volume is required to include a table of the cases reported in that volume as well as the cases cited within the opinions, together with a complete alphabetical index of the subject matters covered. These finding aids are what let a researcher or practitioner locate a particular case or topic within a volume without reading it cover to cover.
Physical specifications for the volumes
The section goes further than naming and indexing requirements — it also specifies physical production standards: each volume must run to at least seven hundred pages, be printed on good paper, well bound, and numbered consecutively in the order the volumes are published, so the full series can be assembled and referenced in sequence. These standards keep the official reports durable and uniform across many years of publication, rather than varying in quality or format from one volume to the next.
Why an official series matters
Having a single, official, consecutively numbered series for each court gives lawyers, judges, and researchers a reliable common reference point when citing precedent — a citation to a particular volume and page of the Philippine Reports or the Court of Appeals Reports points to one fixed, authoritative text of the decision, rather than to a potentially varying reprint from an unofficial source.
Related provisions
- Rule 55, Section 3 — General make
- Rule 55, Section 1 — Publication
- Rule 55, Section 2 — Preparation of opinions for publication