Text of the provision
Art. 60. No decree of legal separation shall be based upon a stipulation of facts or a confession of judgment.
In any case, the Court shall order the prosecuting attorney or fiscal assigned to it to take steps to prevent collusion between the parties and to take care that the evidence is not fabricated or suppressed.
(101a)
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.
What this article means
Article 60 is the Code's strongest guard against a manufactured separation. A decree may never rest on a stipulation of facts (the spouses simply agreeing on what happened) or a confession of judgment (one spouse conceding the case). The ground must be proved by evidence, even if the respondent does not contest it.
To make that real, the court must order the prosecuting attorney or fiscal to actively (a) prevent collusion between the spouses and (b) ensure the evidence is neither fabricated nor suppressed. The State is given a seat at the table precisely because both spouses may want the same outcome and be tempted to stage it.
Why this exists
Read with Article 56 — whose grounds (2), (3) and (5) deny relief for consent, connivance and collusion — Article 60 completes the picture: legal separation is adversarial by design. It cannot be bought with an agreement, and it cannot be defaulted into. This is the same anti-collusion policy that runs through Article 48 for annulment and nullity.
Related provisions
- Article 56 — consent, connivance and collusion as grounds for denial.
- Article 48 — the parallel anti-collusion rule for annulment and nullity.
Cases interpreting this article
- Authorities on the prohibition of decrees by stipulation or confession will be added here as each is verified against primary sources.