Answer
The small claims procedure under A.M. No. 08-8-7-SC is designed to be summary, inexpensive, and lawyer-free. The plaintiff files a verified Statement of Claim with all supporting evidence; the defendant must file a verified Response within a non-extendible ten-day period, attaching all of his own evidence. At a single hearing, the judge first attempts an amicable settlement; if that fails, the case proceeds to an informal hearing and the decision is rendered on the same day or within twenty-four hours. The decision is final, executory, and unappealable — the only remedy is a petition for certiorari under Rule 65 for grave abuse of discretion, and execution issues on motion as a matter of right.
No attorney may appear as counsel for any party at the hearing. An individual party may be assisted only by a non-lawyer relative or next-of-kin, and a juridical entity must be represented by a non-lawyer authorized officer.
Researching Philippine law? Intellegal brings Philippine case-law search, statute and issuance exploration, multi-dimension case comparison, document visualization, and cited deep-research reports into a single workflow — with every citation traced back to its original source, so you can verify each answer rather than take it on trust. Every authority it surfaces links back to its original provision or decision, so you can open the source and confirm the wording yourself, and save or export the questions and reports you reference most. See the full report for the statutes and cases behind this answer, or explore the related questions below.