INTRODUCTION

Date of Promulgation: August 30, 1949

3) Permissive: commands what it

permits to be done should be
tolerated or respected

Date of Effectivity: August 30, 1950

Concepts of Law
Law, in two concepts:
1) General or abstract
-mass of obligatory rules,
established for the purpose of
governing the relations of
persons in society
General Divisions
1) Divine law: God himself is the
legislator
2) Human law
-general or public law
(a) international law
(b) constitutional law
(c) administrative law
(d) criminal law
(e) religious law
-individual or private law
(a) civil law
(b) mercantile law
(c) procedural law
2) Specific or material
-norm of human conduct in
social life, established by
sovereign organization and
imposed for obligatory
observance of all
Kinds
1) Mandatory: commands that
something be done
2) Prohibitory: commands that
something should not be done

FOUNDATIONS: Law is a product of

social life and is a creation of human
nature. Rests upon the concepts of
order, coexistence and liberty.
CHARACTERISTICS:
1) Rule of human conduct
2) Promulgated by competent
authority
3) Obligatory
4) General observance
Law and Morals: spring from the same
source: the social conscience. The law
in many cases takes into account
moral conscience but not all moral
duties have been converted into
juridical obligations because this
would lose the essential characteristic
of morals to be voluntary.
The field of morals is more extensive
than that of law.

CODIFICATION:
-

Systematic organization of the

law into one or mode codes
Codes: collection of laws
of the same kind; a body
of legal provisions
referring to a particular
branch of law

Reasons for Codification:

1) Necessity of simplifying and

arranging the many juridical
rules
2) Necessity of unifying various
legislations in the same country
3) Necessity of introducing reforms

IN THE PHILIPPINES
President Manuel L Quezon in 1940
was the first step in codification, when
he created a Code Committee to
formulate the Civil Code of the
Philippines
Civil laws four different concepts
1) Equivalent to national law
2) Distinguish the body of law
composed of plebiscites,
imperial constitutions
3) Law applicable to the citizens of
Rome
4) Used to designate the opinions
of authorized jurisconsults
PRESENT CONCEPT:
Law which has for its double
purposes of organization of the
family and the regulation of
property
SOURCES OF CIVIL LAW
1) New Civil Code
2) Some statutes such as the
Copyright Law, the Patent Law,
the Law of Waters, and the
various labor laws and other
social legislation

INFLUENCES:
on Spanish Civil Law:
1)
2)
3)
4)

Roman Law
Germanic Law
Canon law
Scientific evolutionary
thought
5) Foreign legislation
6) Doctrines contained in the
jurisprudence
On Anglo-American Common Law
-neither English no American common
law is in force in the Philippines nor
are the doctrines derived therefrom
binding upon our courts, save only so
far as they are founded on sound
principles applicable to local
conditions and are not in conflict with
existing laws

Civil and Commercial Law: there is a

distinction between the two in many
countries. There have been
movements for the unification of these
two branches of law.
But because of the modern
developments in commercial law,
unification is becoming increasingly
more difficult day by day.
Partial unification can be attained. This
present code is a step towards that
objective.