Short answer. Yes. Rule 129, Section 1 requires courts to take mandatory judicial notice, without introduction of evidence, of matters such as the existence and territorial extent of states, the Philippine political constitution and history, official acts of the National Government's branches, the laws of nature, the measure of time, and geographical divisions.
What the law says
A court shall take judicial notice, without the introduction of evidence, of the existence and territorial extent of states, their political history, forms of government and symbols of nationality, the law of nations, the admiralty and maritime courts of the world and their seals, the political constitution and history of the Philippines, official acts of the legislative, executive and judicial departments of the National Government of the Philippines, the laws of nature, the measure of time, and the geographical divisions.
Rule 129, Section 1 — Judicial notice, when mandatory. Read the full provision →
Mandatory means no evidence is needed
Section 1 uses the mandatory 'shall' — for the matters it lists, a court takes judicial notice without either party introducing evidence to prove them. These are treated as too fundamental or too publicly established to require formal proof each and every time they become relevant to a case. This differs sharply from Section 2's discretionary judicial notice, discussed separately, where the court retains a choice about whether to notice a given matter at all rather than being bound to do so.
The scope of the mandatory list
The list is broad but specific: the existence and territorial extent of states, their political history and forms of government, national symbols, the law of nations, admiralty and maritime courts and their seals, the Philippine constitution and history, official acts of the National Government's legislative, executive, and judicial branches, the laws of nature, the measure of time, and geographical divisions. Being an enumerated list, it is understood as exhaustive for mandatory notice — a matter not fitting squarely within one of these categories falls instead under Section 2's discretionary notice, or has to be proved through ordinary evidence.
Why this saves time in litigation
Without mandatory judicial notice, a party might otherwise have to formally prove basic matters like the existence of a foreign state or how time is measured, which would be an unnecessary and repetitive burden. Section 1 removes that burden for the specific categories it lists, letting parties focus their limited evidence on matters genuinely in dispute. It also promotes consistency, since every court applies the same baseline of automatically recognized facts rather than requiring each litigant to establish them anew, case after case, before the same or a different court.