• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
Negros Occidental Third District Representative Javier Miguel Benitez has filed a bill seeking to establish a free, AI-searchable national database of Philippine laws and jurisprudence, describing the proposal as “digital public infrastructure for the rule of law itself.”
House Bill 9468, authored by Benitez, aims to create the Philippine Open Law System, a centralized and publicly accessible legal information platform containing Philippine laws, rules, regulations, jurisprudence, and other legal issuances. The proposed system would be continuously updated, searchable, and free for public use.
“This creates the public infrastructure necessary to help Filipinos locate and understand the law they are already required to obey,” Benitez said.
In a privilege speech delivered on May 25 at the House of Representatives, the Negrense lawmaker highlighted what he described as a “quiet injustice” in the country’s legal system, where citizens are expected to follow laws that many cannot easily access.
“We have ended up with two tiers of law in one Republic. One for those who can pay to understand it, and one for everyone else,” Benitez said.
While acknowledging that Philippine statutes are technically available for free through the Official Gazette and the Supreme Court E-Library, Benitez argued that functional versions that are consolidated, updated, and searchable are largely available only through paid commercial subscriptions.
“A Makati firm pays without a second thought. A farmer in Victorias will never see it,” he added.
Benitez anchored his argument on Article 3 of the Civil Code, which states that “ignorance of the law excuses no one.” He said that if citizens can be penalized for not knowing the law, the government has the responsibility to make legal information accessible and understandable.
He also cited the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Tañada v. Tuvera, which established that publication of laws is indispensable in every case.
To underscore the problem, Benitez pointed to data from the World Justice Project showing that only one in five Filipinos facing legal problems can access legal assistance. He also noted that the Public Attorney’s Office handles over 850,000 cases annually with only around 2,400 lawyers.
In the 2025 Rule of Law Index, the Philippines ranked 97th out of 143 countries and 13th out of 15 nations in the region.
“A right you cannot find is not really a right at all,” Benitez emphasized.
The lawmaker also dismissed concerns about the cost and complexity of the project, citing existing open legal databases abroad, including the European Union’s multilingual legal database, India Code, Australia’s AustLII, Kenya’s open law portal, and Cornell University’s Legal Information Institute.
He further noted that the Philippine government secured a $287-million World Bank facility in 2024 aimed at strengthening the country’s digital infrastructure.
“A national legal database is not a new burden. It is one more room in a house we are already building,” he said.
Benitez also stressed the importance of verified legal databases in the age of artificial intelligence, warning that AI legal tools can generate inaccurate or fabricated answers when not grounded in reliable legal sources.
According to the lawmaker, such errors can be significantly reduced if AI systems are anchored to a verified and consolidated database of Philippine law.
Addressing private legal publishers, Benitez clarified that the proposed measure would not prevent companies from offering value-added services such as legal commentary, analysis, and advanced research tools.
“The law already belongs to the Filipino people, and the State has only to finish the job of putting it in their hands,” the lawmaker said.*
