According to Article 1357.

Contracts shall be obligatory in whatever form they may have been

entered into, provided all the essential requisites for their validity are present.

There are 3 essential requisites, consent, object and cause or consideration.

Consent --> the offer must me certain, acceptance must be absolute, must have the capacity, not given
through mistake, violence, intimidation, undue influence or fraud.

Object --> must not be outside the commerce of men including future things, all rights are transmissible and
services must not be contrary to law, morals, good customs, public order, or public policy, not impossible, must
be determinate to its kinds. This is why public bridges, rivers, illegal drugs, and sexual services may not be the
object of a valid contract.

Cause or consideration --> must exist, lawful and true. Kinds of cause of contracts onerous, remuneratory
and gratuitous or pure benificence.

However, if law requires a contract to be in some form in order that it may be valid or enforceable,
or a contract to be proven in a certain way, that requirement is absolute and indispensable.

The law requires contracts in some form for validity, enforceability and convenience.

Validity means the state of being officially true or legally acceptable.

Enforceability means possible to make people obey, or possible to make happen or be accepted.

Convenience means the state of being suitable for your purposes and needing and causing the least
difficulty.

Required Form for Validity

1. Donations of real property must be in a public document in order to be valid.

2. Contracts of partnership where real property or rights are contributed, or when the capital
contribution is P3,000 or more, must be in a public document in order to be valid.

The following contracts must be in, at least, a private instrument:

1. Donation of personal property, and its acceptance, when the value thereof exceeds P5,000;
2. Agency to sell land or any interest therein
3. Contract of antichresis
4. Stipulations to pay interest on loans; and
5. Stipulations to reduce common carrier’s extraordinary diligence and to limit its liability.

Required Form for Enforceability

The following contracts covered by the statute of frauds must be in, at least, a private instrument:
1. An agreement that is not to be performed within a year
from its making
2. A special promise to answer for the debt, default, or
miscarriage of another
3. An agreement made in consideration of marriage, other
than a mutual promise to marry
4. An agreement for the sale of goods, chattels or things in
action, at a price not less than P500
5. An agreement of the leasing for a longer period than one
year, or for the sale of real property
6. A representation as to the credit of a third person.
Antichresis, under civil law and
Roman law, is a contract whereby a
debtor pledges (i.e., conveys
possession of but not title to) real
property to a creditor, allowing the
use and occupation of the pledged
property, in lieu of interest on the
loan.

When the law requires a contract to be in a public or private document for its enforceability, this means
that the form is not required in order to validate the contract but merely to ensure its efficacy. Thus,
the above-mentioned contracts are valid as between the parties, even when the contract has not been
reduced to public or private documents.

To ensure its efficacy means the power to produce an effect.

Required Form for Convenience

Article 1357. If the law requires a document or other special form, as in the acts and contracts
enumerated in the following article, the contracting parties may compel each other to observe that
form, once the contract has been perfected. This right may be exercised simultaneously with the
action upon the contract.

Article 1358. The following must appear in a public document:

(1) Acts and contracts which have for their object
the creation, transmission, modification or
extinguishment of real rights over immovable
property; sales of real property or of an interest
therein are governed by articles 1403, No. 2,
and 1405;
(2) The cession, repudiation or renunciation of
hereditary rights or of those of the conjugal
partnership of gains;
(3) The power to administer property, or any other
power which has for its object an act appearing or
which should appear in a public document, or
should prejudice a third person;
(4) The cession of actions or rights proceeding from (b) A special promise to answer for the debt,
an act appearing in a public document.
All other contracts where the amount involved
exceeds five hundred pesos must appear in
writing, even a private one.
But sales of goods, chattels or things in action
are governed by articles, 1403, No. 2 and 1405.
The failure to observe the proper form prescribed
by law does not render the acts or contracts
enumerated therein invalid. The form required
under the said Art. 1358 is not essential to the
validity or enforceability of the transaction, but
merely for convenience.
Articles 1403 (2) Those that do not comply with
the Statute of Frauds as set forth in this number. In
the following cases an agreement hereafter made
shall be unenforceable by action, unless the same,
or some note or memorandum, thereof, be in writing,
and subscribed by the party charged, or by his agent;
evidence, therefore, of the agreement cannot be
received without the writing, or a secondary
evidence of its contents:
(a) An agreement that by its terms is not to be
performed within a year from the making
thereof;
default, or miscarriage of another;
(c) An agreement made in consideration of
marriage, other than a mutual promise to marry;
(d) An agreement for the sale of goods, chattels
or things in action, at a price not less than five
hundred pesos, unless the buyer accept and receive
part of such goods and chattels, or the evidences, or
some of them, of such things in action or pay at the
time some part of the purchase money; but when a
sale is made by auction and entry is made by the
auctioneer in his sales book, at the time of the sale,
of the amount and kind of property sold, terms of
sale, price, names of the purchasers and person on
whose account the sale is made, it is a sufficient
memorandum;
(e) An agreement for the leasing for a longer
period than one year, or for the sale of real
property or of an interest therein;
( f ) A representation as to the credit of a third
person.