Short answer. Not as a compulsory heir. Article 892 allows the surviving spouse to inherit after a legal separation only where it was the deceased who gave cause for it. If you were the guilty spouse, you have no legitime in the estate of the one you wronged.
What the law says
In case of a legal separation, the surviving spouse may inherit if it was the deceased who had given cause for the same.
Civil Code, Article 892 — Legitime Of Surviving Spouse. Read the full provision →
What the law says
The testator cannot deprive his compulsory heirs of their legitime, except in cases expressly specified by law.
Civil Code, Article 904 — The Legitime Cannot Be Taken Away. Read the full provision →
The condition is fault, not separation
A decree of legal separation does not by itself end the right to inherit — what ends it is being the spouse who caused it. Article 892 puts the permission the right way round: in case of a legal separation, the surviving spouse may inherit if it was the deceased who had given cause for the same. The innocent survivor keeps the legitime; the guilty one does not. So the first question in any dispute of this kind is not whether a decree exists but which spouse the decree found at fault, and the answer is in the decree itself.
Legal separation is not annulment or divorce
It is worth being clear about what has and has not happened, because the terms are used loosely. Legal separation dissolves the property regime and relieves the spouses of living together, but the marriage subsists. Neither party may remarry. That is precisely why succession has to be addressed by a specific rule: without one, a guilty spouse would remain the deceased's legal spouse and take a legitime as of right. The article supplies the rule and makes the loss of that right the consequence of the fault.
What the deceased could still choose to do
Losing a legitime is not the same as being barred from receiving anything. A legitime is a share the law reserves and the testator cannot take away — Article 904 says the testator cannot deprive his compulsory heirs of their legitime, except in cases expressly specified by law. A guilty spouse simply falls outside that protection. If the deceased nevertheless chose to leave you something out of the free portion in a valid will, that disposition stands on the will's own terms and does not depend on any right of yours.
Where reconciliation changes things
Spouses who reconcile after a decree of legal separation frequently do so informally and record nothing, and that is the most common source of dispute in these estates. Whether the separation was set aside, and on what terms, is a matter of record rather than of family recollection. Retrieve the decree and any subsequent order or joint manifestation, together with the property settlement that followed it. Those documents decide the inheritance question, and they decide it before any argument about the estate's contents begins.
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.
- Elenita V. Macalinao, Kenneth V. Macalinao and Kristel V. Macalinao vs. Cerina, A.K.A. Cerena N. Macalinao and Cindy N. Ma, G.R. No. 250613, April 3, 2024 — read the decision on LawPhil →
Related provisions
- Civil Code, Article 892 — Legitime Of Surviving Spouse
- Civil Code, Article 904 — The Legitime Cannot Be Taken Away