Philippine Law MCP Server

The LawPhil alternative for the AI age.

Query 11,600+ Philippine laws -- from the Data Privacy Act and Cybercrime Prevention Act to the Revised Corporation Code, Consumer Act, and the 1987 Constitution -- directly from Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible client.

If you're building legal tech, compliance tools, or doing Philippine legal research, this is your verified reference database.

Built by Ansvar Systems -- Stockholm, Sweden

Why This Exists

Philippine legal research is scattered across LawPhil, the Official Gazette, and various government agency sites. Whether you're:

• A lawyer validating citations in a brief or contract
• A compliance officer checking data privacy requirements under RA 10173
• A legal tech developer building tools on Philippine law
• A researcher analyzing regulatory trends across 78 years of Republic Acts

...you shouldn't need dozens of browser tabs and manual cross-referencing. Ask Claude. Get the exact provision. With context.

This MCP server makes Philippine law searchable, cross-referenceable, and AI-readable.

Quick Start

Use Remotely (No Install Needed)

Connect directly to the hosted version -- zero dependencies, nothing to install.

Endpoint: https://philippine-law-mcp.vercel.app/mcp

| Client | How to Connect | |--------|---------------| | Claude.ai | Settings > Connectors > Add Integration > paste URL | | Claude Code | claude mcp add philippine-law --transport http https://philippine-law-mcp.vercel.app/mcp | | Claude Desktop | Add to config (see below) | | GitHub Copilot | Add to VS Code settings (see below) |

Claude Desktop -- add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "philippine-law": {
      "type": "url",
      "url": "https://philippine-law-mcp.vercel.app/mcp"
    }
  }
}

GitHub Copilot -- add to VS Code settings.json:

{
  "github.copilot.chat.mcp.servers": {
    "philippine-law": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://philippine-law-mcp.vercel.app/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Use Locally (npm)

npx @ansvar/philippine-law-mcp

Claude Desktop -- add to claude_desktop_config.json:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "philippine-law": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@ansvar/philippine-law-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Cursor / VS Code:

{
  "mcp.servers": {
    "philippine-law": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@ansvar/philippine-law-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Example Queries

Once connected, just ask naturally:

• "What does Section 3 of the Data Privacy Act say about personal information?"
• "Find all Republic Acts about cybercrime and penalties"
• "Is the Consumer Act (RA 7394) still in force?"
• "What are the privacy provisions in the 1987 Constitution?"
• "Search for provisions about electronic commerce and digital signatures"
• "What penalties does RA 10175 prescribe for identity theft?"
• "Find laws about SIM registration requirements"
• "Compare data protection provisions across Philippine privacy laws"

What's Included

| Category | Count | Details | |----------|-------|---------| | Laws | 11,600+ statutes | Republic Acts (1946-2024), Constitution, Revised Penal Code | | Provisions | 80,000+ sections | Full-text searchable with FTS5 | | EU Cross-References | Auto-extracted | References to EU directives/regulations found in statute text | | Database Size | ~80 MB | Optimized SQLite, portable | | Daily Updates | Automated | Freshness checks against LawPhil |

Verified data only -- every provision is sourced from LawPhil (Arellano Law Foundation). Zero LLM-generated content.

Available Tools (15)

Core Legal Research Tools (8)

| Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | search_legislation | FTS5 search across all provisions with BM25 ranking | | get_provision | Retrieve specific provision by document ID + section | | validate_citation | Validate citation against database (zero-hallucination check) | | build_legal_stance | Aggregate citations from multiple statutes for a legal question | | format_citation | Format citations per Philippine conventions (full/short/pinpoint) | | check_currency | Check if statute is in force, amended, or repealed | | list_sources | Data provenance, coverage scope, and limitations | | about | Server metadata, dataset statistics, and freshness |

EU Law Cross-Reference Tools (5)

| Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | get_eu_basis | Get EU directives/regulations referenced by a Philippine statute | | get_philippine_implementations | Find Philippine laws referencing a specific EU act | | search_eu_implementations | Search EU documents with Philippine reference counts | | get_provision_eu_basis | Get EU law references for a specific provision | | validate_eu_compliance | Check alignment status with EU frameworks |

Data Sources & Freshness

All content is sourced from authoritative Philippine legal databases:

• LawPhil (lawphil.net) -- The most comprehensive free Philippine law database, maintained by the Arellano Law Foundation
• Official Gazette -- Official publication of the Republic of the Philippines

Automated Freshness Checks (Weekly)

A weekly GitHub Actions workflow monitors all data sources for new legislation and amendments.

Full provenance metadata: sources.yml

Philippine Legal System Context

• Mixed legal system: Civil law (Spanish heritage) + common law (American heritage) + customary/Islamic law (Bangsamoro)
• Supreme law: 1987 Constitution -- Article III Section 3 protects privacy of communication
• Data Protection Authority: National Privacy Commission (NPC) -- one of the most active DPAs in Asia
• Primary language: English (one of two official languages, alongside Filipino); all legislation in English
• Numbering: Republic Acts (RA) for legislation passed by Congress (RA 1 in 1946 through RA 12000+ in 2024)
• Other statute types: Presidential Decrees (PD), Executive Orders (EO), Batas Pambansa (BP), Commonwealth Acts (CA)
• ASEAN member with 110M+ people and rapidly growing digital economy
• Seeking EU GDPR adequacy for the Data Privacy Act (RA 10173)

Security

This project uses multiple layers of automated security scanning:

| Scanner | What It Does | Schedule | |---------|-------------|----------| | CodeQL | Static analysis for security vulnerabilities | Weekly + PRs | | Semgrep | SAST scanning (OWASP top 10, secrets, TypeScript) | Every push | | Gitleaks | Secret detection across git history | Every push | | Trivy | CVE scanning on filesystem and npm dependencies | Daily | | Socket.dev | Supply chain attack detection | PRs | | OSSF Scorecard | OpenSSF best practices scoring | Weekly | | Dependabot | Automated dependency updates | Weekly |

See SECURITY.md for the full policy and vulnerability reporting.

Important Disclaimers

Legal Advice

THIS TOOL IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE

Statute text is sourced from LawPhil (Arellano Law Foundation). However:

• This is a research tool, not a substitute for professional legal counsel
• Verify critical citations against primary sources for court filings
• Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) may not be included for all laws
• EU cross-references are extracted from statute text, not EUR-Lex full text

Before using professionally, read: DISCLAIMER.md | PRIVACY.md

Development

Setup

git clone https://github.com/Ansvar-Systems/philippine-law-mcp
cd philippine-law-mcp
npm install
npm run build
npm test

Running Locally

npm run dev                                       # Start MCP server
npx @anthropic/mcp-inspector node dist/index.js   # Test with MCP Inspector

Data Management

npm run census                    # Enumerate all Philippine laws from LawPhil
npm run ingest                    # Ingest full corpus (census-driven)
npm run ingest -- --limit 5       # Test with 5 acts
npm run ingest -- --resume        # Resume from where you left off
npm run ingest -- --skip-fetch    # Reuse cached HTML
npm run build:db                  # Rebuild SQLite database from seed files
npm run check-updates             # Check for new legislation

Contract Tests

12 golden contract tests covering:

• 4 article retrieval tests (DPA s3, Cybercrime Act s3, Corporation Code s1, E-Commerce Act s1)
• 3 search tests (personal information, cybercrime, electronic commerce)
• 2 citation roundtrip tests (official lawphil.net URL patterns)
• 1 cross-reference test (DPA to GDPR -- Philippines seeking EU adequacy)
• 2 negative tests (non-existent RA, malformed section)

Run with: npm run test:contract

Related Projects: Complete Compliance Suite

This server is part of Ansvar's Compliance Suite -- MCP servers that work together for end-to-end compliance coverage:

@ansvar/eu-regulations-mcp

Query 49 EU regulations directly from Claude -- GDPR, AI Act, DORA, NIS2, MiFID II, eIDAS, and more. npx @ansvar/eu-regulations-mcp

@ansvar/us-regulations-mcp

Query US federal and state compliance laws -- HIPAA, CCPA, SOX, GLBA, FERPA, and more. npx @ansvar/us-regulations-mcp

@ansvar/swedish-law-mcp

Query 2,415 Swedish statutes -- DSL, BrB, ABL, MB, and more. npx @ansvar/swedish-law-mcp

@ansvar/sanctions-mcp

Offline-capable sanctions screening -- OFAC, EU, UN sanctions lists. pip install ansvar-sanctions-mcp

Contributing

Contributions welcome! See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

Priority areas:

• Presidential Decrees (PD) and Executive Orders (EO) coverage
• Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) for major laws
• Case law integration (Supreme Court decisions)
• Historical statute amendments tracking

Citation

If you use this MCP server in academic research:

@software{philippine_law_mcp_2026,
  author = {Ansvar Systems AB},
  title = {Philippine Law MCP Server: Production-Grade Legal Research Tool},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://github.com/Ansvar-Systems/philippine-law-mcp},
  note = {Comprehensive Philippine legal database with 11,600+ Republic Acts and full-text search}
}

License

Apache License 2.0. See LICENSE for details.

Data Licenses

• Legislation: Open Access (LawPhil / Arellano Law Foundation)
• Government publications: Government Open Data (Official Gazette)
• EU Metadata: EUR-Lex (EU public domain)

About Ansvar Systems

We build AI-accelerated compliance and legal research tools. This MCP server makes Philippine law searchable and AI-readable -- because navigating 11,600+ Republic Acts shouldn't require opening LawPhil in 47 tabs.

ansvar.eu -- Stockholm, Sweden