Text of the provision
Art. 43. The termination of the subsequent marriage referred to in the preceding Article shall produce the following effects:
(1) The children of the subsequent marriage conceived prior to its termination shall be considered legitimate;
(2) The absolute community of property or the conjugal partnership, as the case may be, shall be dissolved and liquidated, but if either spouse contracted said marriage in bad faith, his or her share of the net profits of the community property or conjugal partnership property shall be forfeited in favor of the common children or, if there are none, the children of the guilty spouse by a previous marriage or in default of children, the innocent spouse;
(3) Donations by reason of marriage shall remain valid, except that if the donee contracted the marriage in bad faith, such donations made to said donee are revoked by operation of law;
(4) The innocent spouse may revoke the designation of the other spouse who acted in bad faith as beneficiary in any insurance policy, even if such designation be stipulated as irrevocable; and
(5) The spouse who contracted the subsequent marriage in bad faith shall be disqualified to inherit from the innocent spouse by testate and intestate succession.
(n)
Family Code of the Philippines, Executive Order No. 209, approved July 6, 1987. The Code took effect on August 3, 1988 (Republic v. Orbecido III, G.R. No. 154380, October 5, 2005). Reproduced in full. The notation (n) indicates a new provision with no direct Civil Code antecedent.
What this article means
Article 43 sets out what happens when a subsequent marriage — one validly contracted after a spouse was judicially declared presumptively dead under Article 41 — is later terminated (typically because the absent spouse reappears, per Article 42). Five consequences follow.
The children conceived before termination stay legitimate (1). The property regime is dissolved and liquidated, and a spouse who married in bad faith forfeits their share of the net profits (2). Donations by reason of that marriage remain valid unless the donee was in bad faith (3); a bad-faith spouse can be stripped as an insurance beneficiary even if the designation was "irrevocable" (4); and a bad-faith spouse is disqualified from inheriting from the innocent one (5).
Related provisions
- Article 41 and Article 42 — the presumptive-death remarriage and its termination on reappearance.
- Article 44 — the harsher rule where BOTH spouses acted in bad faith.
- Article 50 — imports paragraphs (2)–(5) here into nullity and annulment cases.
Cases interpreting this article
- Authorities on the bad-faith forfeiture and disqualification effects of Article 43 will be added here as each is verified against primary sources.