Every person, business, or government agency needs to seek out a notary public from time to time.  Any trip to the BIR, the SEC, the DFA, or the like would warrant a visit to the notaryo to have the latter stamp and sign your public documents. Anyone seeking gainful employment has some documents that would need notarizing.  

In this regard, notarization is a fact of life: a mundane process that could either be perceived as a good thing legally or as a downright hassle. In the Philippine context, it is often the latter. With e-notarization, the game changes and the perceived obstacles are greatly minimized. 

What are the benefits of e-notarization? 

1.   You don’t have to go to the notary’s office anymore.

With e-notarization, you don’t have to waste time, energy, and precious gasoline just to seek out a notary public. Everything can be done from the comfort of home as long as you have a laptop, tablet, or even a smartphone, and working internet. Gone will be the days where you’ll have to trudge through tight and wet alleyways near Taft Avenue, only to find a notary public behind a dark sari-sari store. Likewise, you won’t have to pay another PHP 100 to park at some tight corporate building or a rocky and dusty outdoor parking spot in Makati just to get to the nearest notary public. 

2.   Your documents (and your person) are safer. 

It’s common for people in the middle of legal processes to bring voluminous records to the notary public’s office. You meet people of all ages and from all walks of life: the student who just misplaced his license and needs to execute an Affidavit of Loss, the law firm messengers who all seem to know each other and know the ground processes more than judges themselves, and the elderly woman seeking to sell off all her properties. 

Admittedly, not all notary offices are the same. Some are clean and fancy, and some—as mentioned—are tucked in the back of a sari-sari store along Taft. The latter isn’t the best place to bring stacks of documents containing sensitive information about yourself, your circumstances, or your properties. 

With e-notarization, all this goes away. Of course, there are growing concerns about the security of documents transmitted–but the part about your physical safety is surely guaranteed. The mental stress associated with this aspect of notarization can be erased. 

 3.   You can shorten the entire process. 

Appointments for e-notarization can be set at any time. Depending on the notary public, appointments can be set even outside the usually 8-5 work hours, and even on weekends. This is crucial given that commuting, parking, and lining up at the notary’s office takes time. 

 4.   You pay less. 

As mentioned above, the transportation expenses are gone. This is substantial by way savings especially if you are funding notarization processes for several clients. Smaller expenses for stationery needed to prepare documents to be ready for physical notarization could also be done away with. 

What is notarization for? 

When you have your document notarized, you are essentially converting it into a public document—one that the entire world can have access to. On top of this, you make a promise that everything written in the document is true. Thus, you can risk the possibility of prison time if you submit a notarized document and it turns out that there are falsehoods in the same. Notarization provides a crucial extra step in ensuring that the documents you submit–should they be used in the court of law–are real. 

What’s the issue with notarization? 

To ordinary citizens, notarization has always been an extra step or even an obstacle. Often, you’ll have to travel around the city and get through heavy traffic just to seek out a notary public—or a notary, for brevity’s sake. Notarization is also expensive. At its lowest, notarization costs about PHP 100-500 for simple documents, while notarization of deeds of sale of real property are often around 1% of the sale price. Thus, if you are selling land worth PHP 10,000,000, notarization could set you back a whopping PHP 100,000. 

This is a burden to most Filipinos, especially since notarization is usually just one step in longer and expensive legal processes like selling land or filing cases. 

What has the government done about this? 

Thankfully, the Supreme Court of the Philippines promulgated the Rules on Electronic Notarization (AM No. 24-10-14-SC) on February 4, 2025. This was a response to the COVID-19 pandemic when it was nearly impossible to have documents notarized in person. The high court saw the benefit in this. Given the current transportation crisis in the Philippines, electronic notarization, or e-notarization, was adopted as a means to lessen the burden on Filipinos. 

How does this work? 

Electronic Notary Publics (ENP) are commissioned by the Supreme Court and they can conduct notarization over electronic notary facilities (ENF) like Twala Notary. What’s important is that the principal and witnesses as slated in the legal document are present and that the process is private. 

The ENP must verify the identity of the principal and the witnesses through valid IDs presented online. 

Generally, the parties electronically sign the documents in the presence of the ENP. If the document is signed before the event, the signatory need only confirm with the ENP that the signature is his or hers.  

How can one become an e-notary public? 

Only lawyers in good standing with the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) åand compliant with Mandatory Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) and Unified Legal Aid Service (ULAS) requirements may apply for an electronic notarial commission and become an e-notary public, or ENP. A lawyer desiring to be an ENP must submit the documents found in Section 2 of the Rules on Electronic Notarization through email and undergo a virtual hearing for the purpose.

An electronic notarial commission is good for two years and begins from January 1 of the year when the commission was made. 

 There is nothing in the Rules on Electronic Notarization that says that a lawyer seeking to become an ENP must have been commissioned as a regular notary public. On the other hand, existing notaries public must be separately commissioned as ENPs under the present rules. 

Conclusion. 

E-notarization can make the lives of ordinary citizens easier primarily due to the remote nature of the process. There’s less to think about by way of travel, logistics, and expenses. Notarization is an often misunderstood and downplayed process, and it doesn’t help that the current regime involving physical appearance is difficult. With e-notarization, these concerns are allayed. Moreover, notarization as a whole becomes a more formal, dignified, and private process in line with the philosophy underscoring this legal requirement.

E-notarization will complete the legal framework for digital documents in the country. We will take full advantage of the efficiencies of digitalization in all aspects of life. In different professional fields such as commerce, medicine, engineering, and finance, most transactions end up in one document that you sign and notarize.

If signing and notarizing is digitized in a safe, secure, and affordable way, then everyone who needs to sign or have to notarize would prefer the easier way. 

You may learn more about e-notarization through the Supreme Court’s issuance on the same matter.