Start with the thing nobody tells students: APA 7 does not have a Philippine legal citation template, and it does not pretend to. APA’s own guidance for legal materials defers to Bluebook style, the American legal citation system, and carries an explicit caveat that legal conventions differ outside the United States. So the honest answer to “how do I cite a Republic Act in APA 7” is that you adapt the Bluebook pattern APA points to, using Philippine sources and Philippine identifiers, and you follow whatever your department has settled on where the two disagree.
What APA actually says
APA treats legal materials as a special case. Rather than giving them author-date reference formats like a journal article, it adopts the legal convention: the reference entry identifies the material the way lawyers identify it, and the in-text citation gives the short name and the year. Two consequences follow, and both surprise students.
- A statute has no author. You do not write “Congress of the Philippines. (2017).” The name of the act is the first element.
- Case names are italicised in the in-text citation. This is the one place APA italicises a title in the text, and it exists because that is what legal writing does.
The corollary matters too. Because APA hands the job to a system built for American materials, there is no single correct Philippine form, and departments differ. Ask your research coordinator whether the department has a house pattern before you format twenty references. If it does not, the patterns below are the ones in common Philippine use and are internally consistent.
Republic Acts
Reference pattern. Short title of the act, Republic Act No. [number] (year). URL
Worked examples. Each of these was read in full text on LawPhil before being written here.
- Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act, Republic Act No. 10931 (2017).
- Data Privacy Act of 2012, Republic Act No. 10173 (2012).
- Philippine Identification System Act, Republic Act No. 11055 (2018).
- Architecture Act of 2004, Republic Act No. 9266 (2004).
In text. Parenthetical: (Republic Act No. 10931, 2017). Narrative: Republic Act No. 10931 (2017) established the free higher education programme. After the first mention, “RA 10931” is acceptable in the text if you introduce the abbreviation.
Citing a specific section. Philippine statutes are long and your claim is almost always about one section, so name it: (Republic Act No. 10931, 2017, sec. 4). A panellist who has read the act will check the section, and a section number that does not support your sentence is worse than no citation at all.
One habit worth forming: alphabetise by the short title, not by “Republic”. The free tuition act files under U for Universal Access, which means it sits near your other U entries rather than bunching every statute together under R.
Executive Orders, Presidential Decrees and Proclamations
Reference pattern. Executive Order No. [number], s. [series year] (year). URL
The series designation is part of how Philippine issuances are identified and should be kept. The same pattern works for Presidential Decrees, Proclamations, Administrative Orders and Memorandum Circulars, substituting the instrument’s name. Where an issuance carries a title, put the title first, in the same position a statute’s short title occupies.
In text. (Executive Order No. [number], [year]).
A caution specific to executive issuances: they are amended, superseded and revoked far more often than statutes, and the amending instrument is often published years later without the original text being updated on secondary sites. Before you cite one, check whether it is still in force. An issuance revoked two administrations ago, cited as current, is the kind of error that undermines an otherwise sound Chapter 1.
Supreme Court decisions
Reference pattern, using the G.R. number. Party v. Party, G.R. No. [number] (Supreme Court of the Philippines [date]). URL
Reference pattern, using the reporter. Party v. Party, [volume] Phil. [page] (Supreme Court of the Philippines [year]).
Worked examples. Both of these were read on the source named.
- Mandanas v. Ochoa, Jr., G.R. No. 199802 (Supreme Court of the Philippines, July 3, 2018). The decision was rendered En Banc, penned by Bersamin, J., and was consolidated with Garcia v. Ochoa, Jr., G.R. No. 208488. Read on LawPhil.
- Loayon v. People, G.R. No. 232940 (Supreme Court of the Philippines, January 14, 2019), reported at 845 Phil. 605. Decided by the Second Division, penned by Perlas-Bernabe, J. Read on the Supreme Court E-Library.
In text. Parenthetical: (Mandanas v. Ochoa, Jr., 2018). Narrative: In Mandanas v. Ochoa, Jr. (2018), the Court held that… The case name is italicised in both.
The G.R. number is the stable identifier and the one to lead with. Philippine Reports volume and page, abbreviated “Phil.”, and Supreme Court Reports Annotated, abbreviated “SCRA”, are reporter citations; give one if you have it from the record itself rather than reconstructing it. If you cannot see the reporter citation on the source you opened, leave it out. A reconstructed volume and page number is a fabricated citation even when the case is real.
The three sources to verify against
| Source | What it is best for |
|---|---|
| Official Gazette | The official publication venue of laws and executive issuances; the authority on what was published and when |
| LawPhil (Arellano Law Foundation) | Full texts of Republic Acts and decisions, reliably reachable and easy to cite a section from |
| Supreme Court E-Library | The Court’s own record: division, date, ponente and the Philippine Reports citation |
Use at least one of these for every legal citation in your manuscript, and open the actual text rather than a summary. Three rules follow from that.
- Read the section you cite. Not the news article about the law, not another thesis’s description of it. Philippine statutes contain exceptions and transitory provisions that reverse what a summary implies.
- Check the amendment history. A Republic Act may have been amended by a later act, and the consolidated text is what governs. Cite the amending act too where your claim depends on the amendment.
- Never reconstruct an identifier. If you cannot find the G.R. number, the series year or the reporter citation on a source you opened, leave that element out rather than guessing it. A wrong G.R. number points a reader at a real but different case, which is the most damaging kind of error a thesis can carry.
That last rule deserves emphasis because it is the failure mode most common in secondary sources. A thesis that cites a real case with the wrong number sends every subsequent reader somewhere else, and it is trivially caught by a panellist who looks the number up during your defence.
Which chapter your legal citations belong in
| Chapter | What legal material does there |
|---|---|
| Chapter 1, background | Establishes that a programme, a right or an obligation exists, and dates it |
| Chapter 1, definition of terms | Supplies a conceptual definition where a statute defines the term |
| Chapter 2, related literature | The legal and policy framework the study operates within |
| Chapter 3, ethics and permissions | The statutory basis for consent and data handling |
| Chapter 5, recommendations | What the existing law already requires, before recommending something new |
A statute is not a theory and does not belong in the theoretical framework, a distinction set out in the piece on theoretical framework examples by course. It is evidence that something exists, which makes it a background and related-literature source; how that evidence is deployed is worked through in the background of the study examples. Where a statute supplies a definition, the conceptual half of the entry in the definition of terms can cite it directly.
Formatting the entries in the reference list
Legal references sit in the same single alphabetical list as your journal articles and books, with the same hanging indent and the same double spacing. They are not separated into a “Laws” section unless your department asks for one. The mechanics of that list, and the seven errors that turn up in it most often, are covered in the piece on what free APA citation generators get wrong — and worth reading before you use one for legal material, since most generators have no legal templates at all and will silently produce a website entry instead. The page-level formatting of the list is set out in the guide to APA 7 format for a Philippine thesis. If your capstone manual specifies IEEE rather than APA, the legal patterns change entirely; the differences are compared in the piece on APA versus IEEE.
Get the legal citations right the first time
Legal citations are the ones students leave until last and the ones panels check first, because they are the only references a panellist can verify from memory. Tesify keeps each source’s identifier attached from the moment you add it, formats the entry consistently across the whole list, and flags a legal reference that is missing its number or its date rather than quietly publishing an incomplete one. Reading the statute, and deciding what it supports, remains your job.
Keep your references consistent with Tesify
Frequently asked questions
Does APA 7 have a template for Philippine laws?
No. APA defers to Bluebook style for legal materials and notes explicitly that legal conventions differ outside the United States. Philippine departments adapt the Bluebook pattern using Philippine identifiers, and practice varies, so ask whether yours has a house style.
How do I cite a Republic Act in text?
Parenthetically as (Republic Act No. 10931, 2017), or narratively as Republic Act No. 10931 (2017). Add the section when your claim rests on one: (Republic Act No. 10931, 2017, sec. 4).
Do I italicise the name of a law?
No. Statutes are not italicised. Case names are, both in the reference list and in the in-text citation.
What is a G.R. number?
It is the General Register docket number the Supreme Court assigns to a case, and it is the stable identifier to cite. It appears on the decision itself on LawPhil and on the Supreme Court E-Library.
Should I cite Phil. or SCRA?
Give a reporter citation only if you can see it on the source you opened. Philippine Reports is abbreviated “Phil.” and Supreme Court Reports Annotated is “SCRA”. The G.R. number with the date is sufficient on its own.
Where do laws go in the reference list?
In the same alphabetical list as everything else, filed under the first word of the act’s short title, with a hanging indent. Do not create a separate section unless your department requires one.
Can I cite a news article about a law instead of the law?
Only if your claim is about the reporting rather than about the law. For what the law provides, cite the law, and read the provision you cite.
How do I know if a law is still in force?
Check whether a later act amended or repealed it, and read the consolidated text. Executive issuances change most often, so check those every time rather than relying on a source you read last semester.
Do I need a URL for a legal citation?
APA treats the URL as optional for legal materials. Including a link to the Official Gazette, LawPhil or the Supreme Court E-Library is helpful and many Philippine departments prefer it, since it shows which text you actually read.
What if my adviser’s format differs from this one?
Follow your adviser and your department. Because APA has no Philippine legal template, there is no external authority that overrides a departmental house style here. Use one pattern consistently throughout the manuscript.