ATOK FINANCE VS. CORPORATION, petitioner, vs.

COURT OF APPEALS, SANYU

FACTS:

On 27 July 1979, Private respondents Sanyu Chemical Corporation ("Sanyu Chemical") as principal and
Sanyu Trading Corporation ("Sanyu Trading") along with individual private stockholders of Sanyu
Chemical, namely, private respondents spouses Danilo E. Arrieta and Nenita B. Arrieta, Leopoldo G. Halili
and Pablito Bermundo as sureties, executed a Continuing Suretyship Agreement in favor of Atok Finance
as creditor. Under this Agreement, Sanyu Trading and the individual private respondents who were officers
and stockholders of Sanyu Chemical did: "

(1) For Valuable and/or other consideration . . ., jointly and severally unconditionally guarantee to
ATOK FINANCE CORPORATION (hereinafter called Creditor), the full, faithful and prompt
payment and discharge of any and all indebtedness of [Sanyu Chemical] . . . (hereinafter called
Principal) to the Creditor. The word 'indebtedness' is used herein in its most comprehensive sense
and includes any and all advances, debts, obligations and liabilities of Principal or any one or
more of them, here [to]fore, now or hereafter made, incurred or created, whether voluntary or
involuntary and however arising, whether direct or acquired by the Creditor by assignment or
succession, whether due or not due, absolute or contingent, liquidated or unliquidated, determined
or undetermined and whether the Principal may be liable individually or jointly with others, or
whether recovery upon such indebtedness may be or hereafter become barred by any statute of
limitations, or whether such indebtedness may be or otherwise become unenforceable.”

Sanyu Chemical assigned its trade receivables outstanding as of 27 November 1981 with a total face
value of P125,871.00, to Atok Finance in consideration of receipt from Atok Finance of the amount of
P105,000.00. The assigned receivables carried a standard term of thirty (30) days; it appeared,
however, that the standard commercial practice was to grant an extension of up to one hundred twenty
(120) days without penalties.||| PERTINENT PROVISION OF DEED OF ASSIGNMENT:

(g) The debtor/s under the assigned Contract/s are solvent and his/its/their failure to pay the assigned
Contracts and/or any installment thereon upon maturity thereof shall be conclusively considered as a
violation of this warranty.

On 13 January 1984, Atok Finance commenced action against Sanyu Chemical, the Arrieta spouses,
Pablito Bermundo and Leopoldo Halili before the Regional Trial Court of Manila to collect the sum of
P120,240.00 plus penalty charges amounting to P0.03 for every peso due and payable for each month
starting from 1 September 1983. Atok Finance alleged that Sanyu Chemical had failed to collect and
remit the amounts due under the trade receivables.

Sanyu Chemical and the individual private respondents sought dismissal of Atok's claim upon the
ground that such claim had prescribed under Article 1629 of the Civil Code and for lack of cause of
action. The private respondents contended that the Continuing Suretyship Agreement, being an
accessory contract, was null and void since, at the time of its execution, Sanyu Chemical had no pre-
existing obligation due to Atok Finance.

Private respondents went on appeal before the then Intermediate Appellate Court ("IAC")|. Atok
Finance moved to set aside the decision of the 15th Division of the Court of Appeals, inviting attention
to the resolution of the IAC's Third Civil Cases Division of 21 March 1986 originally dismissing
private respondents' appeal for abandonment thereof.||| (Atok Finance Corp. v. Court of Appeals, G.R.
No. 80078, [May 18, 1993])

In the present Petition for Review, Atok Finance assigns the following as errors on the part of the
Court of Appeals in rendering its decision of 18 August 1987:
 "(1) that it had erred in ruling that a continuing suretyship agreement cannot be effected to secure
future debts;

(2) that it had erred in ruling that the continuing suretyship agreement was null and void for lack of
consideration without any evidence whatsoever [being] adduced by private respondents;

(2) that it had erred in granting the Petition for Relief from Judgment while execution proceedings
[were] on-going in the trial court."

ISSUE:

WON continuing suretyship agreement can be effected to secure future debts?

WON private respondents are liable under the Deed of Assignment

RULINGS:

YES. The continuing suretyship agreement can be effected to secure future debts. We consider that
the Court of Appeals here was in serious error. It is true that a guaranty or a suretyship agreement is an
accessory contract in the sense that it is entered into for the purpose of securing the performance of another
obligation which is denominated as the principal obligation. It is also true that Article 2052 of the Civil
Code states that "a guarantee cannot exist without a valid obligation." This legal proposition is not,
however, like most legal principles, to be read in an absolute and literal manner and carried to the limit of
its logic. This is clear from Article 2052 of the Civil Code itself:

"Art. 2052. A guaranty cannot exist without a valid obligation. Nevertheless, a guaranty may be constituted
to guarantee the performance of a voidable or an unenforceable contract. It may also guarantee a natural
obligation."

Moreover, Article 2053 of the Civil Code states: "Art. 2053. A guaranty may also be given as security for
future debts, the amount of which is not yet known; there can be no claim against the guarantor until the
debt is liquidated. A conditional obligation may also be secured.

“FUTURE DEBTS as used above, may also refer to debts existing at the time of the constitution of
the guaranty but the amount thereof is unknown and not to debts not yet incurred and existing at
that time. Ofcourse a surety is not bound under any particular principal obligation until that
obligation is born. But there is no theoretical or doctrinal difficulty in saying that the surety
agreement itself is valid and binding even before the principal obligation intended to be secured
thereby is born, any more than there would be in saying that obligations which are subject to a
condition precedent are valid and binding before the occurrence of the condition precedent.”

(2nd issue)

It may be stressed as a preliminary matter that the Deed of Assignment was valid and binding upon Sanyu
Chemical. Assignment of receivables is a commonplace commercial transaction today. It is an activity or
operation that permits the assignee to monetize or realize the value of the receivables before the maturity
thereof. In other words, Sanyu Chemical received from Atok Finance the value of its trade receivables it
had assigned; Sanyu Chemical obviously benefited from the assignment. The payments due in the first
instance from the trade debtors of Sanyu Chemical would represent the return of the investment which
Atok Finance had made when it paid Sanyu Chemical the transfer value of such receivables.

Article 1629 of the Civil Code invoked by private respondents and accepted by the Court of Appeals is not,
in the case at bar, material. The liability of Sanyu Chemical to Atok Finance rests not on the breach of the
warranty of solvency; the liability of Sanyu Chemical was not ex lege (ex Article 1629) but rather ex
contractu. Under the Deed of Assignment, the effect of nonpayment by the original trade debtors was a
breach of warranty of solvency by Sanyu Chemical, resulting in turn in the assumption of solidary liability
by the assignor under the receivables assigned. In other words, the assignor Sanyu Chemical becomes a
solidary debtor under the terms of the receivables covered and transferred by virtue of the Deed of
Assignment. And because assignor Sanyu Chemical became, under the terms of the Deed of Assignment,
solidary obligor under each of the assigned receivables, the other private respondents (the Arrieta spouses,
Pablito Bermundo and Leopoldo Halili), became solidarily liable for that obligation of Sanyu Chemical, by
virtue of the operation of the Continuing Suretyship Agreement. Put a little differently, the obligations of
individual private respondent officers and stockholders of Sanyu Chemical under the Continuing
Suretyship Agreement, were activated by the resulting obligations of Sanyu Chemical as solidary obligor
under each of the assigned receivables by virtue of the operation of the Deed of Assignment. That solidary
liability of Sanyu Chemical is not subject to the limiting period set out in Article 1629 of the Civil Code.

It follows that at the time the original complaint was filed by Atok Finance in the trial court, it had a valid
and enforceable cause of action against Sanyu Chemical and the other private respondents. We also agree
with the Court of Appeals that the original obligors under the receivables assigned to Atok Finance remain
liable under the terms of such receivables.

WHEREFORE, for all the foregoing, the Petition for Review is hereby GRANTED DUE COURSE, and
the Decision of the Court of Appeals dated 18 August 1987 and its Resolution dated 30 September 1987 are
hereby REVERSED and SET ASIDE. A new judgment is hereby entered REINSTATING the Decision of
the trial court in Civil Case No. 84-22198 dated 1 April 1985, except only that, in the exercise of this
Court's discretionary authority equitably to mitigate the penalty clause attached to the Deed of Assignment,
that penalty is hereby reduced to eighteen percent (18%) per annum (instead of P0.03 for every peso
monthly [or 36% per annum]). As so modified, the Decision of the trial court is hereby AFFIRMED. Costs
against private respondents.

SO ORDERED.