There’s no need for the Appellee to append a certified true copy of the decision/order

According to Section 14, Rule 44 of the Rules of Court, the Appellee's Brief shall contain the
following:
1. A subject index of the matter in the brief with a digest of the arguments and page
references, and a table of cases alphabetically arranged, textbooks and statutes cited
with references to the pages where they are cited;
2. Under the heading "Statement of Facts," the appellee shall state that he accepts the
statement of facts in the appellant's brief, or under the heading "Counter-Statement of
Facts," he shall point out such insufficiencies or inaccuracies as he believes exist in the
appellant's statement of facts with references to the pages of the record in support
thereof, but without repetition of matters in the appellant's statement of facts; and
3. Under the heading "Argument," the appellee shall set forth his arguments in the case on
each assignment of error with page references to the record. The authorities relied on
shall be cited by the page of the report at which the case begins and the page of the
report on which the citation is found.

There is no express requirement under the Rules of Court that an Appellee’s Brief be
accompanied by a certified true copy of the decision appealed from. Compare this with the
requirements for an Appellant’s Brief in civil cases found in Section 13 of Rule 44, which
expressly includes the need to attach a copy of the RTC order - “In cases not brought up by
record on appeal, the appellant's brief shall contain, as an appendix, a copy of the judgment or
final order appealed from.”

Also, it is the Appellant which the Rules expressly require to append a certified true copy of the
decision or final order appealed from in criminal cases. Section 7 of Rule 124 provides that
“[t]he briefs in criminal cases shall have the same contents as provided in sections 13 and 14 of
Rule 44. A certified true copy of the decision or final order appealed from shall be appended to
the brief of appellant.”

There seems to be no case which directly answers the question of whether or not an Appellee’s
Brief must be appended with a certified true copy of the decision. Moreover, the discussion on
Appellee’s Briefs on the commentaries I read ​FOOTNOTE1 focus on the fact that the appellee
cannot ask that the judgment be modified without appealing himself. Based on the Rules of
Court and the lack of discussion in jurisprudence and commentaries, I can confidently conclude
that the Appellee does not need to append the decision in his brief.

There must be reference to the records of the case

1
Recaredo P. Barte, Law on Appeals Revisited, p. 143 (2015)
Mangotawar M. Gubat, Rules of Civil Procedure Annotated, p.525 (2015)
Oscar B. Bernardo, The Book on Judgments, Appeals, and Execution, 233 (3rd Ed. 1999)
Lucas P. Bersamin, Appeal and Review in the Philippines, 196 (2nd Ed. 1999)
Section 14 of Rule 44 requires that the appellee, in his brief, “point out such insufficiencies or
inaccuracies as he believes exist in the appellant's statement of facts with references to the
pages of the record in support thereof”. It likewise requires that the appellee “set forth his
arguments in the case on each assignmens t of error with page references to the record”.

The case of De Liano vs. CA2, albeit speaking of Appellant’s Briefs, tell us that -
“Page references to the record are not an empty requirement. If a statement of fact is
unaccompanied by a page reference to the record, it may be presumed to be without support in
the record and may be stricken or disregarded altogether”

2
De Liano vs. CA, G.R. No. 142316, 370 SCRA 349 (2001)