Short answer. In principle, yes. The Civil Code passes an illegitimate child's hereditary rights on to his own descendants, who inherit from the grandparent by right of representation. What has changed is the size of the share: under the Family Code, the legitime of an illegitimate child is half that of a legitimate child.
What the law says
The hereditary rights granted by the two preceding articles to illegitimate children shall be transmitted upon their death to their descendants, who shall inherit by right of representation from their deceased grandparent.
Civil Code, Article 990 — Transmission to Descendants. Read the full provision →
What the article provides
Article 990 of the Civil Code says that The hereditary rights granted by the two preceding articles to illegitimate children shall be transmitted upon their death to their descendants, who shall inherit by right of representation from their deceased grandparent. Representation means you do not inherit as a grandchild in your own right. You step into the place your father would have occupied and take what he would have taken, dividing it with your brothers and sisters if there are any. Everything therefore hangs on the link: your father must have been an illegitimate child whose filiation to the grandparent is established, and he must have died before that grandparent.
How this reads today
The article was drafted for a set of classifications that no longer exists, so do not work from the bare 1950 text. The Family Code (Executive Order No. 209), in force since 1988, recognises a single class of illegitimate child and fixes the legitime of an illegitimate child at one-half of the legitime of a legitimate child. Except for that modification, the Civil Code's provisions on successional rights remain in force. So the mechanism in Article 990 still operates — the rights pass down and are exercised by representation — but the share must be computed on the Family Code proportion, and the older sub-classifications of illegitimate children no longer apply at all.
What you will have to prove
Representation is never assumed; it is documented. You will need proof of your father's filiation to the grandparent — a birth certificate reflecting the grandparent's participation, a public document of recognition, or other admissible proof. You will also need proof of your own filiation to your father, a death certificate showing he died before the grandparent, and the grandparent's death certificate. If the grandparent left a will, its terms and validity are examined first, with the legitime operating as a floor beneath it. If there was no will, the estate is distributed under the rules on intestate succession, and the complete list of surviving heirs is settled before any share is computed.
Where it gets complicated
Two cautions. First, the fractions depend entirely on who else survives — legitimate children, a surviving spouse, ascendants — and on what the estate actually contains, so no figure means anything without that full picture. Second, succession involving illegitimate filiation is among the more technical corners of Philippine law, and outcomes can turn on details a family thinks are trivial: the wording on a birth certificate, an acknowledgment nobody signed, property the grandparent never really owned. Collect the civil registry documents and the land titles early, before an extrajudicial settlement is signed without you, and take advice on your actual family tree rather than on the general rule.
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.
- Amadea Angela K. Aquino vs. Rodolfo C. Aquino and Abdulah C. Aquino/Rodolfo C. Aquino, G.R. No. 208912 / G.R. No. 209018, December 7, 2021 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Heirs of Serapio Mabborang; Lauriano Mabborang, et al. vs. Hermogenes Mabborang and Benjamin Mabborang, G.R. No. 182805, April 22, 2015 — read the decision on LawPhil →