@ansvar/philippine-law-mcp

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

_{Built with care in Stockholm, Sweden}