Article 887 of the Civil Code: Who are compulsory heirs

In plain words, the compulsory heirs are:

1. Legitimate children and descendants, such as grandchildren, of the deceased.
2. Legitimate parents and ascendants, such as grandparents, but only if there are no legitimate children or descendants.
3. The surviving spouse (widow or widower).
4. Illegitimate children of the deceased. The Civil Code still divides them into old classes in items (4) and (5); see below.

Brothers and sisters, nephews, nieces, uncles and cousins are not compulsory heirs. They may inherit when there is no will, under the rules on intestate succession.

Article 887 sets two rules:

• Legitimate children and descendants exclude the legitimate parents and ascendants. Item (2) applies only "in default of the foregoing".
• The spouse and the illegitimate children are never pushed out by the others:

So a widow, her legitimate children and her late husband's illegitimate child can all be compulsory heirs of the same estate.

Items (4) and (5) use the old classes of illegitimate children found in the Civil Code: "acknowledged natural children", "natural children by legal fiction" and "other illegitimate children". The Civil Code gave them different shares (Article 895).

The Family Code now uses one category. Article 165 says children conceived and born outside a valid marriage are illegitimate, unless the Code says otherwise. And Family Code Article 176, as amended by Republic Act No. 9255, sets one share for each of them:

So Article 887 must be read together with Family Code Article 176. An illegitimate child is still a compulsory heir, and each one's legitime is half of a legitimate child's.

Yes. Article 887 says:

"Filiation" is the legal parent-child relationship. Family Code Article 175 says illegitimate children may prove it in the same way and on the same evidence as legitimate children. Under Article 172, one of those ways is the record of birth in the civil register.

The last paragraph of Article 887 also works the other way: the father or mother of an illegitimate child inherits from that child "in the manner and to the extent established by this Code."

In Aquino v. Aquino (2021), the Supreme Court, sitting En Banc, said that a child whose parents did not marry each other can inherit from a grandparent by right of representation, that is, by taking the place of the parent, for example a parent who died before the grandparent. The Court limited the ruling to that case of representation. It said it was "not now ruling on the extent of the right of a nonmarital child to inherit in their own right." Filiation must still be proved. For more, see can an illegitimate child inherit?