Short answer. No. Separation in fact does not end the absolute community — however long you have lived apart, the property regime continues and everything the rules make community property still is. Article 100 changes only three things: the right to support, how consent is obtained, and who pays for the family.
What the law says
The separation in fact between husband and wife shall not affect the regime of absolute community
Family Code, Article 100 — Separation in Fact. Read the full provision →
What the law says
The spouse who leaves the conjugal home or refuses to live therein, without just cause, shall not have the right to be supported
Family Code, Article 100 — Separation in Fact. Read the full provision →
What the law says
In the absence of sufficient community property, the separate property of both spouses shall be solidarily liable for the support of the family.
Family Code, Article 100 — Separation in Fact. Read the full provision →
The regime survives the separation
Article 100 says it directly: the separation in fact between husband and wife shall not affect the regime of absolute community, with three listed exceptions. Nothing in that sentence turns on how long the separation has lasted or how final it feels. A salary earned five years after one spouse moved out is still community property; so is a car bought with it, a condominium unit, a business started alone. Only a court can end the regime — through annulment, nullity, legal separation or judicial separation of property — and until one does, the two of you own the same mass you always did.
The spouse who left without cause loses support
The first exception withholds support: the spouse who leaves the conjugal home or refuses to live therein, without just cause, shall not have the right to be supported. Two words carry it. Leaving is not enough — the leaving must be without just cause, and a spouse driven out by violence or by conduct that made staying untenable has not forfeited anything. And the loss is personal to that spouse: it does not touch the children, whose support continues to be a charge on the property regardless of which parent walked out of which house.
Consent still has to come from somewhere
Because the regime continues, transactions that need both signatures still need both — and a missing spouse cannot simply be written out. The article's answer is that judicial authorization shall be obtained in a summary proceeding where consent is required and not available. This is the practical trap for the spouse left behind: you cannot sell or mortgage the family's property alone merely because the other has gone, and a buyer who accepts a single signature is buying a defective transaction. Going to court for authority is slower than signing, but it is the step that makes the sale hold.
If the household has run out of money
The third exception reaches the separate property of both spouses: where community property is insufficient, it is solidarily liable for the support of the family, and the spouse who stayed may petition in a summary proceeding for authority to administer or encumber specific separate property of the absent one and use the fruits for the family. That is a real remedy, and it is court-based rather than self-help. If you have been supporting the household alone for years, the dates, receipts and the record of what the other spouse contributed are what the petition will be built from.
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.
- XXX vs. People of the Philippines, G.R. No. 255877, March 29, 2023 — read the decision on LawPhil →