The last mile of digitalization

For a quarter century, the Philippines has had the legal foundation for a digital economy. What it lacked was a way past the notary.

The Electronic Commerce Act of 2000, despite its name, applies to commercial and government transactions and expressly contemplated electronic notarization. Yet whenever a process was proposed for full digitalization, there was a familiar refrain: “The document has to be notarized.”

A compliance officer could say that a notarized document had to be on paper, signed in ink, and presented before a notary. An otherwise digital transaction would return to paper: print, sign, travel, notarize, then scan or courier it.

This became a structural excuse for not digitizing.

The Supreme Court has removed that excuse. In 2025, the Supreme Court issued its Rules on e-Notarization. On Aug. 5, it accredited three electronic notarization facilities (ENFs), giving effect to a 25-year reform, removing a legal barrier to end-to-end digital transactions.

Notarization is not an obsolete formality. The notary verifies identity and ensures that the document is executed knowingly and voluntarily. But the legal effect goes further. Under our rules of evidence, notarization transforms a private document into a public one, making it admissible without further proof of authenticity. A notarized document enjoys legal presumptions of validity that may be overturned only by clear and convincing evidence.

Notarization is a legal trust mechanism. Bringing it online matters.

Could these safeguards be delivered securely without paper? The court has answered yes, with safeguards for identity verification, authentication, liveness, secure records, and tamper detection.

It is common to see organizations digitizing the front end while preserving paper at the back end of their processes. A loan application can be online, but the mortgage may still need a wet signature.

That is not digital transformation. It is paper with a website attached.

eNotarization closes the loop. A document can now be created electronically, signed, notarized and—crucially—verified and used electronically.

Having worked in government for more than 15 years, and in advocacy for digital signatures and electronic notarization for the past six years, I have come to realize that digitalization is ultimately about two things: socialization and leadership.

First, people need to understand that the law already permits more than they think. Many paper practices survive not because the law requires them, but because organizations have never revisited old assumptions.

Second, there must be buy-in from the very top.

Leaders decide whether an organization adopts a digital workflow or continues requiring paper “just to be safe.” Technology makes digitalization possible. Leadership makes it happen at scale.

Hundreds of lawyers interested in becoming among the country’s first eNotaries are already undergoing online training conducted by accredited ENFs. On Aug. 10, the Supreme Court opened its online portal for applications for eNotarial Commissions. Soon, the Philippines will have its first eNotarial act.

Leaders of government, business, and nonprofits should now do their part: review workflows that assume a trustworthy document must be paper, build systems that verify electronic documents, and redesign processes—not merely digitize forms.

If an eNotarized document still needs to be printed for a government agency to accept it, we will not have completed digital transformation. We will have delayed it further.

Every unnecessary trip or couriered document is a cost. Every hour or day spent waiting is wasted precious time that cannot be recovered. Every paper step creates friction—and in a country where time and distance matter, that is expensive.

Digitalization is not simply about technology. It is about promoting ease of doing business, improving access to government, and strengthening our national competitiveness.

Twenty-five years ago, the law anticipated a future of full, end-to-end digital processes. In 2025, the Supreme Court supplied the framework and rules to make it happen. In 2026, the first facilities are in place.

The last mile is here. Now we must all walk it.

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Herminio “Third” Bagro III teaches Constitutional Law at the University of the Philippines College of Law, serves as the US-Asean Business Council’s Philippines chief representative, and was a former undersecretary at the Presidential Management Staff and the Department of Trade and Industry. He cofounded Twala, an e-Notary Facility accredited by the Supreme Court.