Short answer. Yes. Article 246 covers the killing of a father, mother or child whether legitimate or illegitimate. The words are in the article itself, so the child's status makes no difference to the classification, provided the relationship is proved. What matters is filiation, not legitimacy.
What the law says
Any person who shall kill his father, mother, or child, whether legitimate or illegitimate, or any of his ascendants or descendants, or his spouse, shall be guilty of parricide
Revised Penal Code, Article 246 — Parricide: Killing A Relative. Read the full provision →
The phrase is written into the article
This is one of the questions the Code answers on its face. Article 246 reaches any person who shall kill his father, mother, or child, whether legitimate or illegitimate, or any of his ascendants or descendants, or his spouse. The qualifying clause sits immediately after the three closest relationships and admits both statuses in the same breath. There is nothing to interpret and no gap for argument: an illegitimate child is a child for the purposes of this provision, and so is an illegitimate father or mother of the offender.
Filiation is what has to be established
Because status is immaterial, the contested point in practice is the relationship itself. Was this person in fact the offender's child, or the offender's parent? That is a question of filiation, and it is proved with civil registry records and the other proof the law recognises for establishing parentage — not by cohabitation, reputation in the neighbourhood, or how the parties addressed one another. Where a birth certificate does not name the parent, establishing the relationship becomes a substantial matter in its own right rather than a formality to be assumed.
The clause does not extend to every relation in the list
Note where the words fall. Whether legitimate or illegitimate follows father, mother and child. The article then adds ascendants, descendants and spouse as further categories. Reading the qualifier as licence to treat any family-like connection as sufficient is a mistake, because the enumeration remains a closed one — it is about the legitimacy of a filiation the article already recognises, not about widening the circle of relationships that count. Relations by affinity are not on the list at all, whatever the status of anyone concerned.
What this decides, and what it does not
Whether the relationship brings a case within Article 246 is a question of classification. It says nothing about whether a particular person did the act, whether any defence is available, or what a court will find on the evidence — all of which remain open and are decided on proof. If you are reading this because of a charge, the two documents that matter first are the information, which shows the offence actually alleged, and the registry record bearing on filiation. A lawyer will want both before saying anything further.
Related provisions
- Revised Penal Code, Article 246 — Parricide: Killing A Relative
- Revised Penal Code, Article 255 — Infanticide Of A Newborn