NotarioPH will notarize your documents by video call. The rules came in 2025.

A new platform called NotarioPH says Filipinos will soon be able to have documents notarized without leaving the house. You verify who you are, meet a notary on a video call, sign on screen, and get back a document with an electronic seal. The announcement came out Thursday.

It is a partnership between two companies. Quanby Solutions Inc. builds the software and is an accredited electronic notary facility provider, cleared by the Office of the Bar Confidant of the Supreme Court. The law firm Gorriceta Africa Cauton and Saavedra handles the legal side. Quanby chief executive Maria Crisma Maxwell said the accreditation is what makes the technology usable in a legal setting.

What the Supreme Court actually allowed

None of this is a workaround. The Supreme Court approved the Rules on Electronic Notarization under A.M. No. 24-10-14-SC, published on March 9, 2025 and effective 15 days later. The rules created a new role, the Electronic Notary Public, who can notarize for someone located anywhere in the country and in some cases abroad. Under the old 2004 rules, a notary could only work inside their own city or province.

Identity is checked with more than one method: facial recognition, biometrics, and one-time passwords, following Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas standards. The record of every notarization is kept in a digital logbook the rules require to be tamper-proof, and NotarioPH stores its signature records on a blockchain, meaning a shared ledger that is hard to edit after the fact.

Why it matters

Notarization was one of the last errands that still forced you to show up in person. For a Filipino working overseas, a single special power of attorney could mean a trip to the consulate and weeks of courier time. For someone in a far province, it meant a day of travel. Removing distance is the whole point, and the notary is still a real person, just on a screen.

The catch to watch

The rules cover electronic documents in PDF format only. Paper with a handwritten signature, notarial wills, and depositions all still follow the 2004 rules, so those still need you in the room. The companies also have not published what a session costs, and only providers accredited by the Supreme Court can legally do this, so check that any service you use is on that list before you pay.