Short answer. Not as a first resort. Fines and pecuniary indemnities are not chargeable to the partnership. They may be enforced against partnership assets only after the partnership's own responsibilities are covered and if the guilty spouse has no exclusive property or too little — and he is charged for it at liquidation.
What the law says
Neither shall the fines and pecuniary indemnities imposed upon them be charged to the partnership.
Family Code, Article 122 — Personal Debts, Fines and Indemnities. Read the full provision →
The starting position protects the family
A criminal penalty is personal to the person penalised, and the article says so directly: fines and pecuniary indemnities shall not be charged to the partnership. The reasoning is the same one that keeps a spouse's purely personal debts off the partnership — the family's common fund exists to answer for the family's obligations, and a wrong committed by one spouse is not one of them. So the innocent spouse does not become a co-payer of her husband's fine merely by being married to him under this regime.
The subsidiary route, and its two conditions
That is not the end of the sentence, and the second half is where families are actually caught. Fines and indemnities may be enforced against the partnership assets, but only once two things hold. First, the partnership's own responsibilities — the obligations it exists to answer for, enumerated in the article immediately before this one — must have been covered. Second, the spouse who is bound must have no exclusive property, or not enough of it. The partnership is therefore a fallback fund reached after the guilty spouse's own patrimony is exhausted, not an alternative a creditor may choose.
Payment is a debit, not a gift
Even where the partnership does end up paying, the article makes it an advance. At the time of liquidation, the spouse concerned shall be charged for what has been paid, so the sum comes out of his share when the accounts are drawn. The innocent spouse is not made whole immediately, but she is not permanently poorer either. The same treatment is given to a spouse's pre-marriage personal debts and to the support of illegitimate children, which the article groups with fines precisely because all three are one spouse's burden being carried temporarily by both.
What to do when enforcement is attempted
If a sheriff moves against property you believe is partnership property, the order of the article is your argument, and it needs evidence. Establish what exclusive property the penalised spouse has or had — that is the fund to be exhausted first — and be ready to show which of the family's obligations remain outstanding. Keep the judgment itself, since the amount and the nature of what was imposed matter, and keep a record of anything the partnership does pay so that the charge against his share at liquidation can actually be computed.
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.
- Teresita Cordova and Jean Ong Cordova vs. Edward Ty, G.R. No. 246255, February 3, 2021 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Ayala Investment & Development Corp., et al. vs. Court of Appeals, et al, G.R. No. 118305, February 12, 1998 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Carmelita T. Borlongan vs. Banco De Oro/Eliseo C. Borlongan, Jr. vs. BDO Unibank, Inc, G.R. No. 217617 / G.R. No. 218540, April 5, 2017 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Philippine National Bank vs. Venancio C. Reyes, Jr, G.R. No. 212483, October 5, 2016 — read the decision on LawPhil →