Short answer. Yes, generally — the choice belongs to the person who owes support, not to you. Article 204 lets the obligor choose between paying a fixed allowance or receiving and maintaining you in the family dwelling instead. That option is unavailable, though, if there is a moral or legal obstacle to it, such as a situation making it inappropriate.
What the law says
The person obliged to give support shall have the option to fulfill the obligation either by paying the allowance fixed, or by receiving and maintaining in the family dwelling the person who has a right to receive support. The latter alternative cannot be availed of in case there is a moral or legal obstacle thereto.
Family Code, Article 204 — The Obligor's Option: Allowance or Board. Read the full provision →
The obligor's choice between allowance and board
Article 204 gives the person who owes you support, referred to as the obligor, a choice in how to fulfill that obligation. The obligor may either pay the allowance fixed — the cash amount set for your support — or, as an alternative, receive and maintain in the family dwelling the person entitled to support. So under this article, being asked to move into the obligor's household instead of receiving cash is a real option the law recognizes, not something outside what support obligations can look like.
Why the option belongs to the obligor, not the recipient
The article frames this as the obligor's option, meaning the person who owes the support is the one who gets to choose between the two forms, not the person receiving it. If the law had instead let the recipient dictate the form, the obligor could be forced into an arrangement they did not want; instead, Article 204 places that choice with the party carrying the legal duty to provide support in the first place.
The moral-or-legal-obstacle exception
That choice is not unlimited, however. The article states plainly that the latter alternative cannot be availed of in case there is a moral or legal obstacle thereto — meaning the option to take you into the family dwelling instead of paying an allowance is closed off wherever there is a genuine moral or legal reason it should not happen. The article does not itself list what counts as such an obstacle; it leaves that to the actual circumstances of each situation, which is a factual question rather than one the statute answers in the abstract.
Whether not getting along counts as an obstacle
Whether personal friction or not getting along rises to the level of a 'moral obstacle' the article contemplates is not something the bare text of Article 204 resolves for you. What the article does make clear is that the possibility of such an obstacle exists precisely to prevent the in-kind option from being used in situations where it would be inappropriate, so the obligor's choice is not absolute even though the general rule favors letting the obligor decide the form support takes.
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.
- Ma. Belen B. Mangonon etc. vs. Hon. Court of Appeals, et al, G.R. No. 125041, June 30, 2006 — read the decision on LawPhil →