DPB vs.

Adil 161 SCRA 307

Facts:
Patricio Confesor and his wife, Jovita Villafuerte, took out a loan amounting to two-
thousand pesos (P2,000) from the Development of the Philippines (DBP) on
February 10, 1940. This is proven by a promissory note that they have signed
binding themselves to pay the said amount in ten (10) equal yearly amortizations.
After ten years, the loan remained unpaid. Then on April 11, 1961, Patricio
Confessor signed a second promissory note, promising to pay the loan on or before
June 15, 1961. The said promissory note states that if Confessor fails to pay the said
amount, he agrees to foreclose his mortgage.
DBP then filed a complaint on September 11, 1970, after the couple failed to comply
with the promissory note. The lower court decided that the spouses had to pay DBP
the borrowed amount plus interest. The defendants then made an appeal, and the
decision was reversed. The plaintiff filed a motion for reconsideration of the said
decision, but it was denied.
Issue:
Can the right to prescription be renounced or waived?
Ruling:
Yes, the right to prescription can be waived or renounced. The first promissory note
had set in, but by signing another promissory note on April 11, 1961, the confessor
expressly renounced and waived his right to the prescription of the action for the first
promissory note that he had signed.
The Supreme Court stated that the signing of the second promissory note does not
only mean acknowledgment of the first promissory note, but a promise to pay the
loaned amount. To quote: “ there is something more than a mere moral obligation to
support a promise, to wit a – pre-existing debt which is sufficient consideration for
the new promise; upon this sufficient consideration constitutes, in fact, a new cause
of action.
It is this new promise, either made in express terms or deduced from an
acknowledgment as a legal implication, which is to be regarded as reanimating the
old promise, or as imparting vitality to the remedy (which by lapse of time had
become extinct) and thus enabling the creditor to recover upon his original contract.