Forced shares in Spanish and Philippine succession law
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Description: OBJETO DE LA CONFERENCIA
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Abstract
Spanish and Philippine Succession Law are based on the same concepts, traditions and Civil Code. In fact, the Civil Code of the Philippines of 1950 tries to improve the Spanish Civil one, which was up until then in force in the archipelago. Therefore, it is based on it. Moreover, in spite of the fact of numbering the articles in accordance with the new text, in the official version of the Code, most of the articles have an additional number cross referencing the original article in the Spanish Civil Code.
One of the sections of the Philippine Civil Code that has maintained a close connection with that of its Spanish roots is Succession Law. In fact, Philippine law on succession is mostly Spanish Law. Out of a total of 332 articles, only 29 originate from North American Law. In this article we want to analyse the similarities and differences between both succession laws, in order to be able to propose different possibilities for a future evolution of both twin systems, specially in matter of inheritance forced shares.
Resumen
Tanto el Derecho español de sucesiones como el filipino siguen una misma tradición jurídica. De hecho cuando el vigente Código civil de Filipinas fue aprobado en 1950 supuso una notable mejora del español al introducir nuevos conceptos elaborados por la propia doctrina y jurisprudencia españolas. Por otro lado es significativo que el Código filipino conserva junto a la nueva numeración de cada artículo, la antigua correspondiente al Código español.
Una de las materias en las que se aprecia claramente la influencia y huella del Código español es el derecho de sucesiones, pues de un total de 332 articulos solo 29 proceden del derecho norteamericano. En este artículo analizamos las similitudes y diferencias existentes entre ambas regulaciones en materia de sucesiones a fin de vislumbrar qué mejoras podrían proponerse de cara a su actualización, muy especialmente en materia de legítimas.
Description
In brief, law of Succession, is defined in both legal systems as a mode of acquiring ownership. In fact, art 712 of the Philippine Civil Code (PCC) repeats the content of art. 609 of the Spanish Civil Code (SCC); as well as art. 777 PCC repeats the art. 657 SCC when referring to when the succession takes place.
Therefore, we can affirm that the regulation of Succession Law in both codes is parallel, however there are important differences that we should take into account: Perhaps the most important one is that the Spanish Law abolished the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children in 1981, while the Philippine law keeps it.
The second important difference is that the 1950 Philippine lawmaker decided to abolish the “mejoras” or betterments in favour of children or descendants. It was said that the betterments could not be accepted by a society accustomed to not discriminating between children. Therefore, keeping the betterment would subvert the essence of the Philippine family relationship. What, however, it has not been an obstacle in the PCC to maintain the legal distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children.
The third important distinction is that while the widowed spouse reserve ruled by arts 834-839 SCC was abolished in the PCC, the so called “reserva troncal” of art. 811 SCC was recovered in the Philippines by the legislator of 1950, after being forbidden during the American rule. It is curios to compare the Philippine Civil Code with the other current Spanish Civil Code model from Puerto Rico, that chooses just the reverse option. This is to keep the widowed spouse reserve, but to abolish the lineal one