Short answer. The president, managing partner, general manager, corporate secretary, treasurer, or in- house counsel, wherever found, or their secretaries if those officers are absent or unavailable. If none of them can be served, it goes to whoever customarily receives the corporation's correspondence at its principal office.
What the law says
When the defendant is a corporation, partnership or association organized under the laws of the Philippines with a juridical personality, service may be made on the president, managing partner, general manager, corporate secretary, treasurer, or in- house counsel of the corporation wherever they may be found, or in their absence or unavailability, on their secretaries.
Rule 14, Section 12 — Service upon domestic private juridical entity. Read the full provision →
A named list of corporate officers, not just anyone at the company
The rule limits valid service to a specific list of officers: the president, managing partner, general manager, corporate secretary, treasurer, or in- house counsel. Service on a receptionist, an ordinary employee, or some other staff member who is not one of these named officers does not satisfy this rule, even if that person works at the company and appears to have authority.
Their secretaries can be served if the officer is unavailable
Where the named officer is not available, the rule allows service in their absence or unavailability, on their secretaries. This provides a practical fallback so that a corporation cannot avoid service indefinitely simply by making its listed officers difficult to reach at any given moment in the underlying process.
This step still keeps service reasonably close to someone who actually works alongside the named officer.
Whoever customarily handles the corporation's mail is next
If none of the named officers or their secretaries can be served, the rule falls back further: it shall be made upon the person who customarily receives the correspondence for the defendant at its principal office. This ensures a genuinely valid avenue for service still exists even when every officer named earlier in the rule is truly unreachable at the time service is attempted.
This fallback still ties service to someone with a real, regular, and genuine day-to-day connection to the company's actual incoming correspondence.
Special rules for receivership and persistent refusal
Where the corporation is under receivership or liquidation, service instead goes to the receiver or liquidator. And if the listed persons refuse to receive summons despite at least three attempts on two different dates, the rule allows electronic service, if allowed by the court, as a further fallback against a corporation that is actively dodging service.
These final safeguards make it genuinely difficult for a corporation to indefinitely evade being properly and formally brought before the court.