Short answer. Yes. Philippine law is unusual in this: Article 353 of the Revised Penal Code defines libel to include an imputation tending to blacken the memory of one who is dead. Death does not put a person beyond defamation, and the family can bring the complaint.
What the law says
A libel is a public and malicious imputation of a crime, or of a vice or defect, real or imaginary, or any act, omission, condition, status, or circumstance tending to cause the dishonor, discredit, or contempt of a natural or juridical person, or to blacken the memory of one who is dead.
Revised Penal Code, Article 353 — Definition Of Libel. Read the full provision →
The definition says so in terms
Article 353 defines libel as a public and malicious imputation of a crime, or of a vice or defect, real or imaginary, or any act, omission, condition, status, or circumstance tending to cause the dishonor, discredit, or contempt of a natural or juridical person, or to blacken the memory of one who is dead. That last clause is deliberate. In many legal systems defamation dies with the person; here it does not. The same definition also covers a juridical person, so a company or an association can be defamed as well. What the clause protects is the memory — the standing the deceased still holds among the living — which is why the wrong is felt by the family even though the person named can no longer answer.
Every other element still has to be there
The clause widens who may be defamed. It does not lower the bar. The statement must still be an imputation of something concrete — a crime, a vice, a defect, an act or a condition — rather than mere abuse or an unkind opinion. It must be public: said or published to somebody other than the family. It must be malicious. And the deceased must be identifiable from the statement, even if never named. Note that truth is not automatically a shield. Under the Code, a true imputation protects the speaker only where it concerns a public officer's official conduct or is otherwise privileged, and even then only if published with good motives and for justifiable ends.
Who can actually file
A dead person cannot complain, so the complaint is brought by those the law recognises as standing in his place — in practice the surviving spouse, and the ascendants, descendants or siblings. This matters procedurally: a distant friend or an outraged colleague, however genuinely offended, is generally not the right complainant. It is worth being clear about what the family is vindicating. The criminal action is over the blackening of the deceased's memory. Where the words also reflect on a living relative — an accusation that the whole family shared in a fraud, say — that relative may have a complaint in his own right, which is a different and often stronger case.
If it was posted online
Most complaints of this kind now begin with a post, a comment thread or a video rather than a newspaper. That changes the exposure. Libel published through a computer system falls under the cybercrime law of 2012, which treats online defamation as its own offence and attaches a heavier penalty than the printed or broadcast form. Practically, act on the evidence first: capture the post with its URL, the account, and the date and time before it is edited or deleted, and record who else shared it. The rules on where a libel complaint may be filed and on how quickly it must be brought are strict and unforgiving, so take advice early rather than after the material has disappeared.
Related provisions
- Revised Penal Code, Article 353 — Definition Of Libel
- Revised Penal Code, Article 354 — Requirement For Publicity
- Revised Penal Code, Article 355 — Libel By Writing Or Similar Means