The Philippines is an archipelago of 7107 islands (about 2000 of which are inhabited), divided into three island groups: Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. The Philippines has a population of 119 million. English and Filipino are the official languages, however 87 major dialects are spoken all over the islands. English is the language of instruction in higher education.
The Philippines is a unitary presidential constitutional republic, with the President of the Philippines acting as both the head of state and the head of government.
For information about the population, economy, geography, history, politics, government and culture of the Philippines, see:
Liberalism and the Postcolony: thinking the state in 20th-century Philippines by 
The Conjugal Dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos by
The Philippine legal system is a mixture of customary usage, Roman (civil law) and Anglo-American (common law) systems, and Islamic law. The legal system is the result of the immigration of Muslim Malays in the fourteenth century and the subsequent colonisation of the islands by Spain and the United States. The civil law operates in areas such as family relations, property, succession, contract and criminal law while statutes and principles of common law origin are evident in such areas as constitutional law, procedure, corporations law, taxation, insurance, labour relations, banking and currency.
For a detailed historical overview of the legal system, see the ASEAN Law Association's guide to the legal system of the Philippines (open access).
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See also the Globalex Guide to Philippine Legal System and Legal Research. |
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Update on the Rule of Law for Human Rights in ASEAN: The Path to Integration (2016)
Includes a detailed chapter on the Philippines
See also:
The World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index - Country Profile for the Philippines (open access).
In 2017–18, the Philippines was ranked 88th out of 113 countries
Latest World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index (Full Report)
The Rule of Law and Human Rights in the Philippines page on the Human Rights in ASEAN website.
The main sources of Philippine law are:
To some extent, customary law also forms part of the Filipino legal system. Art 6, para 2 of the Constitution provides that ‘the State shall recognise, respect, and protect the rights of indigenous cultural communities to preserve and develop their cultures, traditions and institutions’.
The primary sources of Muslim law / Shariah are the Quran, Sunnaqh, Ijma and Qiyas.