The subject “private international law” used to be officially called “conflict
of laws.” Under Legal Education Board (LEB) Memorandum Order (MO) No. 24,
series of 2021, the name for this civil law subject is now "private
international law."In my law school class, I encourage my students to call this subject "PRIL" in order to distinguish it from public international law (PIL).
There is no difference between private international law and conflict of laws; they refer to the same field of law. However, as mentioned above, there is a trend to do away with the name “conflict of laws” because it has been perceived as a misnomer and because it provides students with the wrong notion or assumption that the focus of the subject is the "conflicts" or differences between Philippine laws and foreign laws. At the risk of stating the obvious, such differences is not the reason for the study of private international law.
This trend does not do much of a help as the term “private international law” also tends to mislead the student. It gives the impression that the subject is part of political law in the same way that public international law is while, in truth, it is a civil law subject. Also, the term "international" deceives students into thinking that the main focus of the subject is treaties and other international agreements.
While private international law does touch on some treaties and international agreements, the starting point remains to be the municipal laws of the Philippines.