Short answer. No, not by law. Article 1279 of the Civil Code requires that the two debts be due before legal compensation can operate. If one obligation has not yet matured, you cannot unilaterally force the two to cancel; you would need the other side's agreement to set them off early.
What the law says
That the two debts be due
Civil Code, Article 1279 — Requisites of Legal Compensation. Read the full provision →
Both debts must already be due
Legal compensation lets mutual debts extinguish each other automatically, but only when each of the conditions in Article 1279 is present. One of them is that the two debts be due. A debt that is still subject to a period, a payment not yet fallen due, cannot be demanded today, and the law will not let you force it into a set-off before its time. Until the maturity date arrives, the obligation simply is not collectible, so it cannot be used to cancel what you owe now. Forcing an early offset would deprive the other party of the benefit of the term they bargained for.
Why the period matters
A due date is not a formality; it is a benefit the law recognises. When a debt carries a period, the debtor is entitled to hold the money until then, and the creditor is entitled to expect payment on schedule, sometimes with interest running in the meantime. Allowing one side to collapse an immature debt into a present set-off would rewrite that bargain unilaterally. That is why maturity is a strict requisite. A debt that has become demandable through the debtor losing the benefit of the period is a different matter, but absent that, an obligation that is not yet due is treated, for compensation purposes, as not collectible at all.
What you can do instead
The bar is on forcing the offset, not on agreeing to it. Parties remain free to set off debts by mutual consent even before they mature, because conventional compensation rests on agreement rather than on the legal requisites. So if both of you are willing, you may contract to cancel the two obligations now and settle any difference. What you cannot do is refuse to pay a debt that is due today by pointing to a debt the other owes you that has not yet come due. Until that debt matures or the other side agrees, your own due obligation still has to be paid.
Check the rest of the checklist too
Maturity is only one of the requisites. Article 1279 also demands mutuality, that each be principally the other's debtor and creditor, that both debts be liquidated and demandable, that they consist of money or consumable things of the same kind and quality, and that neither be tied up in a controversy started by a third person. Even once both debts are due, the offset fails if any of these is missing. So before treating two obligations as cancelled, run the whole list; a single absent element leaves each debt standing to be paid separately.
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.
- Banco De Oro Unibank, Inc. vs. Edgardo C. Ypil, Sr., et al, G.R. No. 212024, October 12, 2020 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Union Bank of the Philippines vs. Development Bank of the Philippines, G.R. No. 191555, January 20, 2014 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Philippine National Bank vs. Court of Appeals, et al, G.R. No. 108052, July 24, 1996 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- United Planters Sugar Milling Co., Inc. vs. The Hon. Court of Appeals, et al, G.R. No. 126890, July 11, 2007 — read the decision on LawPhil →