delivered the opinion of the Court.

A firm which supplied three transformers to a subcontractor of a public work claimed the value of those transformers from the bondsman of the principal contractor. The sum owed amounted to $1,859.72. Act No. 388 of May 9, 1951, 22 L.P.R.A. § 47 et seq., requires that every contractor of public works shall post a bond in order to secure the payment of the materials used in the work by the principal contractor as .well as by the subcontractor. Section 5 of the aforementioned act provides thus:

“Every person, natural or artificial, who has worked as a worker or employee on, or who has supplied, sold, or delivered materials, equipment, and tools for, the work referred to under *123section 47 of this title, with regard to which work the bond required by sections 47-58 of this title has been posted, and who has not been paid, in whole or in part, as required by sections 47-58 of this title, his salaries or wages, or the price of the materials, equipment, and tools sold, delivered, or supplied for the work, shall have the right to file suit, without necessity for previous notice, against the contractor, against the bond of the contractor, against the bondsmen of the contractor, or against any of said bondsmen, for recovery of any amount which may for such reason be owing him. Any person or persons tolio have a direct contractual relationship with a subcontractor on the work and who have or do not have an expressed or implied contractual relationship with the contractor on the ivork who has posted the bond, may institute action against the contractor, the bond of the contractor, the bondsmen of the contractor, or against any of the said bondsmen, for the recovery of all or any part of: (1) any amount which may be owed them by the subcontractor for salaries or wages they have earned as employees or workers of the subcontractor on the work; and (2) any amount which may be owed them by reason of their having supplied, sold or delivered materials, equipment, and tools for the subcontractor on the works. Suppliers or sellers of materials, equipment and tools to the subcontractor shall be obligated, before instituting action against the contractor, his bond, or his bondsmen, to notify the contractor, by registered mail, of their claim. At the expiration of thirty days from the mailing of the said notice they may institute the action herein authorized. Workers and employees of the subcontractor may institute • action at any time without previous notice to the contractor of their claim. In all other respects they shall abide by the rights and remedies granted by sections 47-58 of this title to the workers and employees and the suppliers of materials, equipment, and tools, of the contractor and the liabilities imposed by sections 47-58 of this title shall apply to the contractor, his bond and his bondsmen.”

The Act grants a cause of action to the materialman of a subcontractor, against the contractor, his bond, or his bondsmen, but as a prerequisite to the exercise of the action it requires that the contractor be notified of the claim.

*124In the case at bar said notice was not served. The firm which supplied the materials maintains that the notice is a prerequisite to sue the principal contractor, but that it is not a prerequisite to sue the bondsman. The trial court concurred with that opinion. In construing the provision of the Municipal Law which requires that the municipality be served notice of the occurrence of an accident within ninety days after the occurrence of the same, it followed the precedent established in García v. Northern Assurance Co., 92 P.R.R. 236 (1965).

In Garcia we held that the condition established by § 96 of the Municipal Law1 is only for the exercise of the action against the municipality but that the surety company cannot raise the lack of service of notice to the municipality as a defense. Section 96 of the Municipal Law, specifically provides that “no judicial action may be instituted against a municipal corporation for damages caused by the fault or negligence of the latter if written notice thereof is not given . . . .” We see then that while Act No. 388 provides that the contractor should be notified before an action is filed against the surety company, what the Municipal Law provides is that an action cannot be filed against a municipality, if the requisite of service of notice to the latter has not been complied with.

*125That requirement of one statute and the other is different. That is why in construing the provision of the Municipal Law, taking into consideration also, the fact that the Insurance Code authorizes the direct action against the insurer,2 *126we conclude that the defense of not having notified the municipality did not benefit the insurance company.

The situation in the cases of bonds posted in order to secure the payment of the materials used in a public work is different. As a condition to file judicial claim against the surety for the materials supplied to a subcontractor, the act, as we have seen, specifically requires that the principal contractor be previously notified. This is so because irrespective of the fact that the main purpose of Act No. 388 is to secure the payment to the laborers and materialmen, the act establishes a procedure by which the contractor has the opportunity of finding out timely the amount owed by the subcontractor, and thus he may withhold an amount sufficient to pay the materialmen from the amount still owed for the work performed. It is very important for the contractor to receive this notice because different from the bonds for public liability where the surety cannot claim from the insured the amount it had to pay for damages, in the type of bond posted to secure the payment for materialmen, the bondsman being solidary may recover by claiming the amount paid to the contractor. As a matter of fact, the usual practice is that the surety does not issue the bond until the contractor provides enough security to cover what the surety has to pay. The federal courts have construed the provision of the Miller’s Act, which as we stated in Jiménez y Salellas, Inc. v. Maryland Cas. Co., 92 P.R.R. 200 (1965), was the pattern followed by Act No. 388 in the sense that an action against the surety does not lie without the previous notice to the contractor. Fleisher Engineering Co. v. United States, 311 U.S. 15 (1940); Liles Construction Company v. United States, 415 F.2d 889 (5th Cir. 1969); Noland Company v. Allied Contractors, 273 F.2d 917 (4th Cir. 1969); United *127States v. Continental Casualty Company, 230 F.Supp. 557 (U.S.D.C.W.D. Pen. 1964). And the truth is that nothing extraordinary is being demanded from the materialman. Simply, to notify the contractor the amount owed by the subcontractor thirty days before he files the complaint.

It is proper, therefore, to reverse the judgment appealed from.