Support By Ascendants

It is something of a legal issue that has confounded practitioners before the Family Court like an agonizing question: “May the paternal grandparents be required to give support to their grandchildren in the event of the father’s inability to extend such sustenance to his children?”

The law on support is governed by the Family Code of the Philippines#, which provides that parents and their legitimate children are obliged to mutually support one another, and it is worthy to note that this obligation extends down to the legitimate grandchildren and great grandchildren. The law also asserts that should the person obliged to give assistance, like the mother and the father, does not have sufficient means to satisfy all claims, the other persons enumerated in Article 199 in its order, like the grandparents, shall provide the necessary relief.

The rationale behind this obligation to give helping hand by the other persons aside from the parents is not difficult to see as it is based on ordinary human experience on relationship. As the adage of “blood is thicker than water” goes, the closer the relationship of the relatives, the stronger the tie that binds them, and this is because the obligation to give aid is imposed first upon the shoulder of the closer relatives and only in their default is the obligation moved to the next nearer relatives.#

It is by statutory and jurisprudential mandate that the liability of the ascendants, like grandparents to provide legal support to their descendants like grandchildren is beyond dispute. Although the obligation to give legal support principally pertains to the parents, but this obligations likewise passes to the grandparents not only upon default of the parents but also for the parents’ inability to provide sufficient nourishment, so to speak. As a fortiori, the grandchildren cannot demand support directly from their grandparents if they have parents who are capable and willing of supporting them.#

Lest it be misunderstood, the grandparents’ concurrent obligation to give support extends only to their descendants, as the term is commonly understood to refer to relatives by blood of lower degree, like the grandchildren. Simply stated, if no support is forthcoming from the parents, the grandchildren can ask support from their grandparents. However, unlike the grandchildren, the daughter-in-law or the mother of the grandchildren has no legal right to claim for support from her parents-in-law, since her right to receive such support stems exclusively from her husband, anchoring from their marital bond.
By Judge Globert J. Justalero