See - sc.judiciary.gov.ph/jurisprudence/2012/october2012/192799.pdf
"x x x.
Neypes elucidates that the “fresh period rule” applies to appeals under Rule 40 (appeals from the Municipal Trial Courts to the RTC) and Rule 41 (appeals from the RTCs to the CA or this Court); Rule 42 (appeals from the RTCs to the CA); Rule 43 (appeals from quasi-judicial agencies to the CA); and Rule 45 (appeals by certiorari to this Court).
A scrutiny of the said rules, however, reveals that the “fresh period rule” enunciated in Neypes need NOT apply to Rules 42, 43 and 45 as there is no interruption in the 15-day reglementary period to appeal. It is explicit in Rules 42, 43 and 45 that the appellant or petitioner is accorded a fresh period of 15 days from the notice of the decision, award, judgment, final order or resolution or of the denial of petitioner’s motion for new trial or reconsideration filed.
The pivotal question is whether the “fresh period rule” is applicable to appeals from conviction in criminal cases governed by Sec. 6 of Rule 122 which pertinently provides:
Sec. 6. When appeal to be taken. – An appeal must be taken within fifteen (15) days from promulgation of the judgment or from notice of the final order appealed from. This period for perfecting an appeal shall
be suspended from the time a motion for new trial or reconsideration is filed until notice of the order overruling the motion has been served upon the accused or his counsel at which time the balance of the period begins
to run. (Emphasis supplied.)
While Neypes was silent on the applicability of the “fresh period rule” to criminal cases, the issue was squarely addressed in Yu v. Tatad,which expanded the scope of the doctrine in Neypes to criminal cases in appeals of conviction under Sec. 6, Rule 122 of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure. Thus, the Court held in Yu:
While Neypes involved the period to appeal in civil cases, the Court’s pronouncement of a “fresh period” to appeal should equally apply to the period for appeal in criminal cases under Section 6 of Rule 122 of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure x x x.
x x x x
Were we to strictly interpret the “fresh period rule” in Neypes and make it applicable only to the period to appeal in civil cases, we shall effectively foster and encourage an absurd situation where a litigant in a
civil case will have a better right to appeal than an accused in a criminal case—a situation that gives undue favor to civil litigants and unjustly discriminates against the accused-appellants. It suggests a double
standard of treatment when we favor a situation where property interests are at stake, as against a situation where liberty stands to be prejudiced.
We must emphatically reject this double and unequal standard for being contrary to reason. Over time, courts have recognized with almost pedantic adherence that what is contrary to reason is not allowed in law—
Quod est inconveniens, aut contra rationem non permissum est in lege.Thus, we agree with the OSG’s view that if a delay in the filing of an appeal may be excused on grounds of substantial justice in civil actions, with more reason should the same treatment be accorded to the accused in seeking the review on appeal of a criminal case where no less than the liberty of the accused is at stake. The concern and the protection
we must extend to matters of liberty cannot be overstated.
It is, thus, now settled that the fresh period rule is applicable in criminal cases, like the instant case, where the accused files from a judgment of conviction a motion for new trial or reconsideration which is denied by
the trial court. The accused will have a fresh 15-day period counted from receipt of such denial within which to file his or her notice of appeal.
x x x,"
