Title II:

Legal Separation

(The Family Code of the Philippines)

Article 55

A petition for legal separation may be filed on any of the following grounds:

  1. Repeated physical violence or grossly abusive conduct directed against the petitioner, a common child, or a child of the petitioner;
  2. Physical violence or moral pressure to compel the petitioner to change religious or political affiliation;
  3. Attempt of respondent to corrupt or induce the petitioner, a common child, or a child of the petitioner, to engage in prostitution, or connivance in such corruption or inducement;
  4. Final judgment sentencing the respondent to imprisonment of more than six years, even if pardoned;
  5. Drug addiction or habitual alcoholism of the respondent;
  6. Lesbianism or homosexuality of the respondent;
  7. Contracting by the respondent of a subsequent bigamous marriage, whether in the Philippines or abroad;
  8. Sexual infidelity or perversion;
  9. Attempt by the respondent against the life of the petitioner; or
  10. Abandonment of petitioner by respondent without justifiable cause for more than one year.

For purposes of this Article, the term child shall include a child by nature or by adoption.  (9a)

Article 56

The petition for legal separation shall be denied on any of the following grounds:

  1. Where the aggrieved party has condoned the offense or act complained of;
  2. Where the aggrieved party has consented to the commission of the offense or act complained of;
  3. Where there is connivance between the parties in the commission of the offense or act constituting the ground for legal separation;
  4.  Where both parties have given ground for legal separation;
  5. Where there is collusion between the parties to obtain decree of legal separation; or
  6. Where the action is barred by prescription.  (100a)
Article 57

An action for legal separation shall be filed within five years from the time of the occurrence of the cause.  (102)

Article 58

An action for legal separation shall in no case be tried before six months shall have elapsed since the filing of the petition.  (103)

Article 59

No legal separation may be decreed unless the Court has taken steps toward the reconciliation of the spouses and is fully satisfied, despite such efforts, that reconciliation is highly improbable.  (n)

Article 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)

Article 61

After the filing of the petition for legal separation, the spouses shall be entitled to live separately from each other.

The court, in the absence of a written agreement between the spouses, shall designate either of them or a third person to administer the absolute community or conjugal partnership property.  The administrator appointed by the court shall have the same powers and duties as those of a guardian under the >Rules of Court.  (104a)

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