Short answer. Yes. Where an illegitimate child dies leaving no descendants and filiation is duly proved as to both parents, and both are living, the father and mother inherit the estate in equal shares. If only one parent's filiation is proved, or only one survives, that parent takes the entire estate alone.
What the law says
his father or mother shall succeed to his entire estate; and if the child's filiation is duly proved as to both parents, who are both living, they shall inherit from him share and share alike
Civil Code, Article 993 — Parents Succeed the Child. Read the full provision →
The two conditions the article sets
The equal split is not automatic — it depends on two facts existing at the moment of death. First, the child must have died without issue, either legitimate or illegitimate: any child or grandchild of the deceased displaces the parents from the intestate estate. Second, filiation must be duly proved as to both parents, and both must be living. A father who never acknowledged the child, and whose paternity is not otherwise established, does not inherit merely by being the biological father. Where only one parent qualifies, that parent succeeds to the entire estate rather than to a half, and the unproved parent takes nothing.
How this article reads today
The shares in this provision were framed on the classification of children used when the Civil Code took effect in 1950, and the article must now be read subject to the Family Code. The Family Code provides that the legitime of each illegitimate child is one-half of the legitime of a legitimate child, and that "except for this modification, all other provisions in the Civil Code governing successional rights shall remain in force." The Family Code also recognises a single class of illegitimate child, so the old Civil Code sub-classifications — natural children, acknowledged natural children, and the rest — no longer divide heirs into tiers. The parents' equal share survives that change intact.
What the rule does not settle
This provision speaks only to intestate succession — where the deceased left no will, or the will does not dispose of everything. A valid will can direct the free portion elsewhere, though the compulsory shares the law reserves for parents cannot simply be written out. The article also does not decide what happens when a surviving spouse is in the picture; the spouse of an illegitimate child inherits only where no parent survives, so the parents here come first. And it does not create rights between the deceased and the legitimate relatives of his parents, who remain outside the line of intestate succession with him.
Proving filiation is usually the real fight
In practice the dispute is rarely about arithmetic; it is about whether a parent can prove filiation at all. The birth certificate signed by the parent, a written and public acknowledgment, an admission in a public or private document, or an open and continuous possession of the status of a child are the ordinary evidence. A father's name typed into a birth record without his participation is weak on its own. Because the estate can move entirely from one parent to another on this point, assemble the civil registry records early. Where filiation or the size of the estate is contested, book a consultation before executing any settlement.