Short answer. Under Article 44 of the Civil Code, three kinds of entities are juridical persons: the State and its political subdivisions; other public corporations, institutions, and entities created by law for a public purpose; and private corporations, partnerships, and associations to which the law grants a separate juridical personality.
What the law says
The following are juridical persons: (1) The State and its political subdivisions; (2) Other corporations, institutions and entities for public interest or purpose, created by law
Civil Code, Article 44 — Who Are Juridical Persons. Read the full provision →
What a juridical person is
The law recognizes two sorts of persons: natural persons, meaning human beings, and juridical persons, meaning organizations that the law treats as having a legal existence of their own. A juridical person can own property, enter contracts, sue, and be sued in its own name, separate from the individuals behind it. Article 44 of the Civil Code lists exactly which entities the law clothes with this personality. The list is not open-ended; an entity is a juridical person only if it falls within one of the three categories the article sets out.
The State and its subdivisions
The first category is government itself. The article names The State and its political subdivisions. This means the Republic of the Philippines and its component units, such as provinces, cities, municipalities, and barangays. They are juridical persons by their very nature, without needing any separate grant of personality. That is why a local government can hold land, sign contracts, and be named in a lawsuit as if it were a single legal being. Their status flows from the Constitution and the laws that create and organize them, not from any private agreement.
Public corporations and institutions created by law
The second category covers Other corporations, institutions and entities for public interest or purpose, created by law. These are bodies the legislature sets up to serve a public function, distinct from the State itself. For them the article fixes a starting point for legal existence: their personality begins as soon as they have been constituted according to law. In other words, such a public entity becomes a juridical person the moment it is validly created under its enabling statute, and from that moment it can act in its own name. The key is that a law, not a private contract, brings them into being.
Private corporations, partnerships, and associations
The third category is the private sector. It covers Corporations, partnerships and associations for private interest or purpose to which the law grants a juridical personality, separate and distinct from that of each shareholder, partner or member. This is the source of one of the most important ideas in business law: the entity is a legal person apart from its owners. A corporation's debts are its own, not automatically those of its stockholders, and a partnership can hold property in the firm's name. Note the phrase "to which the law grants": the personality is not automatic but comes from complying with the law that allows the entity to be formed.
Cases citing this provision
These Supreme Court decisions cite the provision above. We list them so you can read them yourself; the summaries of what each decided are not ours to give.
- Boy Scouts of the Philippines vs. Commssion on Audit, G.R. No. 177131, June 7, 2011 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Philippine Primark Properties, Inc. vs. China Banking Corporation Trust and Assets Management Group, G.R. No. 263887, August 19, 2024 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Fr. Ranhilio Callangan Aquino, Dr. Pablo F. Narag, in representation of Permanent Employees of, G.R. No. 227715, November 3, 2020 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Aniceto G. Saludo, Jr. vs. Philippine National Bank, G.R. No. 193138, August 20, 2018 — read the decision on LawPhil →