When a decedent is survived by a legal wife, marital child, subsequent wife, and two non-marital children, who among them may claim the proceeds of the death benefits? What is the apportionment of the shares which the heirs are entitled to receive?

These questions led the Supreme Court in Elenita Macalinao et al. v. Cerena Macalinao et al. (G.R. No. 250613, 3 April 2024) to apply the rules on intestate succession vis-à-vis POEA Memorandum Circular No. 10, series of 2010 to resolve an issue that the law is decidedly silent on.

This case involves a husband who worked as a seafarer prior to his death on board a vessel in 2015. The only property he left upon his death were the death benefits arising from his employment amounting to P4,506,309.52.

In 1981, the husband married his legal wife with whom he had a child. However, only four years after they were married, the husband and legal wife separated in fact. Both eventually entered into subsequent marriages while their marriage was subsisting. In 1990, the husband married his subsequent spouse. Their 25 years of cohabitation produced two children. Meanwhile, the legal spouse married her second husband in 1992.

The first family eventually filed a Petition for the Settlement of Estate of the husband with the issue of the declaration of the nullity of the subsequent marriage as a second issue therein. They argued that the death benefits formed part of the estate of the husband and they were entitled to receive it as compulsory heirs.

On the other hand, the second family claimed that the death benefits did not form part of the husband’s estate and its distribution should be made in accordance with the designation made by the husband in his employment contract naming the subsequent spouse as his beneficiary.

When the case reached the Supreme Court, it clarified that the contractual death benefits arising from the employment contract did not form part of the husband’s estate. Inasmuch as the benefits due to the decedent’s beneficiaries arise only upon the decedent’s demise, they cannot be considered as “inheritance” or property, rights, and obligations of the decedent already existing prior to his demise.

Nonetheless, the Supreme Court proceeded to apply the rules on intestate succession under the New Civil Code to determine that the husband’s legal heirs and the portion which they are entitled to receive since the POEA Memorandum Circular expressly referred to the said rules.

The said circular defines “beneficiaries” as “the persons to whom the death compensation and other benefits due under the employment contract are payable in accordance with the rules of succession under the Civil Code of the Philippines, as amended.”

Applying Articles 999 and 983 in relation to Articles 892 and 895 of the New Civil Code, as modified by Article 176 of the Family Code, the Supreme Court ruled that only the legal spouse, marital child, and two non-marital children may claim the death benefits.

The Supreme Court explained that since there was no legal separation in the first marriage, the fact that the legal wife also contracted another marriage does not disqualify her as the husband’s legal heir under the rules on succession.

As to the subsequent spouse, the Supreme Court discussed that she may not be considered as a beneficiary, even though she was designated by the husband as such, since their marriage was bigamous in nature.

In the end, the Supreme Court had to revisit the discussions made by notable civilists and justices to rule for the first time that when the surviving heirs are the (a) legal spouse, (a) one marital child, and (c) two non-marital children, their share in the inheritance (in this case, death benefits) shall be one-fourth (1/4), one-half (1/2), and one-eighth (1/8) each, respectively.

This apportionment, says the Supreme Court, “best affirms the primacy of compulsory succession and the non-impairment of the legitime of the legitimate child.”

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