Short answer. Yes. An attempt by the respondent against the life of the petitioner is the ninth ground for legal separation. You do not need a criminal conviction first, and unlike most of the other grounds it does not have to have happened more than once.
What the law says
(9) Attempt by the respondent against the life of the petitioner;
Family Code, Article 55 — Grounds for Legal Separation. Read the full provision →
One incident is enough
Read against the rest of the article the clause is striking for what it leaves out. The violence ground speaks of repeated conduct; this one does not. Attempt by the respondent against the life of the petitioner requires a single attempt, and no injury needs to have resulted — the attempt is the ground. The law treats an assault on the other spouse's life as something no marriage is expected to absorb once, so there is no threshold of frequency to reach before a petition can be brought.
The criminal case is separate
You do not have to wait for a prosecution to be decided, and a criminal case that never gets filed, or that ends without a conviction, does not close this ground. The family court makes its own finding on its own evidence and to a different standard. Where a criminal case does exist it will help, and its records are worth obtaining, but it is not a precondition. That distinction matters most where the attempt happened inside the home and there were no witnesses beyond the family.
The attempt must be against your life
The clause names the petitioner. An attempt on the life of a child, terrible as that is, is not this ground, though violence directed at a child is covered by the first ground in the article and by the criminal and child protection laws. The conduct also has to be aimed at causing death rather than at hurting or frightening you; that is what separates this clause from the violence ground, and the two are often pleaded together where the history supports both.
Safety comes before the petition
If this has happened, a legal separation case is not the thing that protects you — it is slow, and it does nothing while it is pending. Report the incident, get medical attention and have the injuries documented, and ask about the protective remedies available against violence in the home, which can act quickly. The police, barangay and hospital records made at the time are also, in the end, the evidence the petition will rest on, and they are far more persuasive than an account given months later.
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.
- Aiko Yokogawa-Tan vs. Jonnell Tan and the Republic of the Philippines, G.R. No. 254646, October 23, 2023 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Maria Vicia Carullo-Padua vs. Joselito Padua, G.R. No. 208258, April 27, 2022 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Arabelle J. Mendoza vs. Republic of the Philippines, et al, G.R. No. 157649, November 12, 2012 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Lucita Estrella Hernandez vs. Court of Appeals, et al, G.R. No. 126010, December 8,1999 — read the decision on LawPhil →