PERSONS – SAN BEDA COLLEGE OF LAW PEREZ, PATRICIA ALEXANDRIA

Civil Code of the Philippines

R.A. No. 386
Chapter 1: Effect and Application of Laws
Article I: This act shall be known as the “Civil Code of the Philippines”.
- Main draft of this civil code was prepared by the ROXAS COMMISSION; Manuel Roxas created the
commission via Executive Order No. 48 on March 20 1947.
- Dr. Jorge Bocobo was the chariman.
- “An act to ordain and institute the civil code of the Philippines.”
Article II: Laws shall take effect after (15) fifteen days following the completion of their publication
either in the Official Gazette, or in a newspaper of general circulation in the Philippines, unless it is
otherwise provided.
- The civil code of the Philippines took effect on August 30, 1950.
- When a statute does not explicitly provide for its effectivity, it shall have effect only after the expiration
of the 15 day period following the completion of its publication either in the Official Gazette or in a
newspaper of general circulation in the Philippines.
- Publication must be in full or it is not publication at all since its purpose is to inform the public of its
contents. NO PUBLICATION: LAW IS INEFFECTIVE.
Requirement/content of laws that should be published:
1. Presidential Decrees
2. Executive Orders
3. Administrative Rules and Regulations
4. Charter of the City
5. Circulars Issued by the Monetary Board
- No publication is required of the instructions issued by, say, the Minister of Social Welfare on the case
studies to made in the petitions for adoptions or the rules laid down by the head of a government agency
on the assignments or workload of his personnel or the wearing of office uniforms.
- If law provides a different period shorter or longer than the 15 day period provided by Section 1 of E.O.
No. 200, then such shorter or longer period, as the case may be, will prevail.
- If the law provides that it shall take effect immediately, it means that it shall take effect immediately
after publication with the 15 day period dispensed with it.
- “It shall take effect immediately 15 days after publication.”
- EFFECTIVITY provision of LAWS refers to all statutes, including those local and private laws unless
there are special laws providing a different effectivity mechanism for particular statutes.

Article III: Ignorance of the law excuses no one from compliance therewith.
PERSONS – SAN BEDA COLLEGE OF LAW PEREZ, PATRICIA ALEXANDRIA

- Not absolute: Only applies to mandatory and prohibitory laws.

Reasons for this provision: Expediency, Policy but on Necessity.
- That every person knows the law is a conclusive presumption.
- Public is always put on constructive notice of the law’s existence and effectivity. Also true even when a
person has no actual knowledge of such law.
- “ignorantia legis no excusat”
Article IV: Laws shall have no retroactive (made effective as of date prior to enactment) effect unless
the contrary is provided.
- Law looks to the future unless the legislature may have given that effect to some legal provisions, and
statutes are to be construed as having only prospection operation, unless the purpose and intention of the
legislature to give them a retroactive effect is expressly declared or is necessarily implied from the
language used, and in case of doubt, the same must be resolved against the retroactive effect.
- Connected with Article 2 because people must be notified first.
When is retroactive effect allowed?
1. Expressly provided by the law.
2. When law is curative and remedial.
3. When law is procedural.
4. When law is penal in character and favorable to the accused.
Article V: Acts executed against the provisions of mandatory or prohibitory laws shall be void,
except when the law itself authorizes their validity.
Mandatory Provision of Law – one the omission of which renders the proceeding or acts to which it
relates generally illegal or void.
Prohibitory Laws – contains positive prohibitions and are couched in the negative terms importing that
the act required shall not be done otherwise than designated.
Article VI: Rights may be waived, unless waiver is contrary to the law, public order, public policy,
morals, or good customs, or prejudicial to a third person with a right recognized by law.
Waivers are not presumed; it must be shown clearly and convincingly shown, either by express
stipulation or acts admitting no other reasonable explanation.
Waiver cannot be established by a consent given under a mistake or misapprehension of fact.
What can be waived?
1. Rights
2. Protections
3. Advantages conferred by statutes
Article VII:
Laws are repealed only by subsequent ones, and their violation or non-observance shall not be
excuse by disuse, or custom or practice to the contrary.
PERSONS – SAN BEDA COLLEGE OF LAW PEREZ, PATRICIA ALEXANDRIA

When the courts declare a law to be inconsistent with the Constitution, the former shall be void and
the latter shall govern.
Administrative or executive acts, orders and regulations shall be valid only when they are not
contrary to the laws or the Constitution.
Repeal (EXPRESS OR IMPLIED) is the legislative act of abrogating through a subsequent law the effects
of a previous statute or portions thereof.
Implied Repeal – when a new law contains provisions contrary to or inconsistent with those of a former
without expressly repealing them. (2 rules cannot exist at the same time)
Express Repeal – literally declared by a new law as where particular laws and provisions are named and
identified and declared to be repealed, or in general terms, as where a provision in a new law declares all
laws and parts of laws inconsistent therewith to be repealed.
Article VIII: Judicial decisions applying or interpreting the laws or the Constitution shall form a
part of the Legal system of the Philippines.
Judicial decisions of the Supreme Court are AUTHORITATIVE AND PRECEDENT-SETTING.
Inferior courts and the Court of Appeals are merely PERSUASIVE.
Article IX: No judge or court shall decline to render judgement by reason of the silence, obscurity
or insufficiency of the laws.
Judges must not avoid performance of this responsibility (no person shall be deprived of life, liberty and
property without due process) just because of an apparent non-existence of any law governing a particular
legal dispute or because the law is involved is vague or inadequate.
Whether his decisions are not without logic or reason, he cannot be said to be have been incompetent.
Do and must legislate to fill in the gaps in the law because the mind of the legislator is finite and therefore
cannot foresee all possible cases to which the law may apply.
This article gave power to the Judiciary to “legislate” by filling in gaps.
Article X: In case of doubt in the interpretation or application of laws, it is presumed that the
lawmaking body intended right and justice to prevail.
A literal interpretation is to be rejected if it would be unjust or lead to absurd results.
FIRST AND FOREMOST DUTY OF THE COURT is to apply the law.