Southeast Asian Legal Research Guide: Introduction to the Philippines & its Legal System

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.