Revised Penal Code of the Philippines: Felonies, Penalties, Prescription

The Revised Penal Code of the Philippines (Act No. 3815) defines most ordinary crimes in the country and sets a graduated scale of penalties ranging from one day of arresto menor up to forty years of reclusion perpetua. The sentence a court actually imposes depends on several moving parts: the stage the crime reached, the offender’s role in it, any circumstances that justify, excuse, reduce, or aggravate the act, the peso value involved for property crimes, and the minimum-maximum range required by the Indeterminate Sentence Law. The code is split into two books. Book One contains the general rules that apply to every crime; Book Two defines specific offenses.

What Counts as a Felony

Article 3 defines felonies as acts or omissions punishable by law. Every felony involves one of two mental states: intentional wrongdoing (dolo) or negligent wrongdoing (culpa). An intentional felony requires proof that the offender meant to do something illegal. A negligent felony results from carelessness, lack of foresight, or lack of skill, with no malicious intent behind it.¹

A felony can also be committed by failing to act when the law requires action. A parent who neglects to provide basic care for a child, for instance, commits a punishable omission.

Stages of Execution

A crime can be punished even when the offender did not finish carrying it out. Article 6 recognizes three stages:²

Attempted. The offender begins the crime through direct, overt acts but does not complete all the steps needed to produce it, and stops for reasons other than a voluntary change of heart.
Frustrated. The offender completes every act needed to produce the crime, yet the crime does not happen due to causes outside the offender’s control. A classic example is stabbing someone with fatal intent, but the victim survives because of emergency surgery.
Consummated. Every element needed for the crime’s completion is present.

Penalties shrink as the crime moves further from completion. A consummated felony draws the full penalty prescribed by law, a frustrated felony draws one degree lower, and an attempted felony draws two degrees lower.

Who Is Punished and How Much

Criminal liability attaches differently depending on how involved a person was. The code sorts participants into three categories, each carrying its own level of penalty.¹

Principals under Article 17 are those who directly carry out the crime, those who force or induce another person to commit it, and those who cooperate by performing an act without which the crime could not have been accomplished. They bear the heaviest penalty.
Accomplices under Article 18 cooperate through acts before or during the crime, but their involvement is supportive rather than indispensable. Their penalty is one degree lower than the principal’s.
Accessories under Article 19 learn about the crime after it happens and then help the offender profit from it, conceal evidence, or assist in escape. Their penalty is two degrees lower. A limitation applies: accessories who help a principal escape can only be held liable if the principal committed a particularly serious crime (like murder or treason), or if the accessory abused a public position to provide help.

So a getaway driver essential to a robbery faces punishment as a principal, while a friend who hides stolen goods afterward faces a lighter sentence as an accessory.

Circumstances That Change the Sentence

The code recognizes five categories of circumstances that courts weigh when deciding whether to convict and what penalty to impose.

Justifying Circumstances

Under Article 11, a person who acts under justifying circumstances commits no crime at all. The familiar example is self-defense: using reasonable force to repel an unprovoked, unlawful physical attack is lawful. Others include defending a close relative, acting in fulfillment of a duty, and obeying a lawful order from a superior.¹

Exempting Circumstances

Article 12 covers situations where a crime technically occurred, but the person who committed it is not held criminally responsible. Under Republic Act 9344, the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act, children fifteen years old or younger at the time of the offense are exempt from criminal liability entirely and are instead placed in intervention programs. Children above fifteen but below eighteen are also exempt unless they acted with discernment, meaning they understood the difference between right and wrong when they committed the act.³ Other exempting circumstances include acting while suffering from a severe mental condition or acting under an uncontrollable fear of equal or greater harm. Even when criminal punishment is waived, the offender (or those responsible for them) may still owe civil damages to the victim.

Mitigating Circumstances

Article 13 lists factors that reduce the penalty because the offender’s guilt is somewhat diminished. Voluntary surrender to the authorities before being caught earns a lower sentence because it reflects a degree of remorse and cooperation. Having a physical condition that restricts the offender’s ability to act or communicate is another recognized factor.¹

Aggravating and Alternative Circumstances

Aggravating circumstances under Article 14 push the penalty higher. They include exploiting a public position, committing the offense at night to avoid detection, and using particularly destructive means like fire or poison.¹

Article 15 describes alternative circumstances, which can either increase or decrease liability depending on the specific crime. These include the offender’s relationship to the victim, the offender’s level of education, and whether the offender was intoxicated at the time. Intoxication mitigates the penalty if it was not habitual or intentional, but aggravates it if the offender deliberately got drunk to build courage for the crime.

The Penalty Scale

Penalties are organized by severity, each level with a fixed duration under Article 27. Courts start there and then adjust for circumstances, stage, and degree of participation.¹

Afflictive penalties, the most severe:

Reclusion perpetua: 20 years and 1 day to 40 years
Reclusion temporal: 12 years and 1 day to 20 years
Prision mayor: 6 years and 1 day to 12 years⁴

Correctional penalties:

Prision correccional: 6 months and 1 day to 6 years
Arresto mayor: 1 month and 1 day to 6 months

Light penalties:

Arresto menor: 1 day to 30 days⁵

Each penalty level is further divided into minimum, medium, and maximum periods. When the code prescribes prision correccional in its medium and maximum periods, the court can sentence within the upper two-thirds of that range but not the lowest third. This internal subdivision gives courts flexibility while keeping sentences within a predictable band.

Capital punishment remains in the text of the code but has been prohibited since 2006 by Republic Act 9346. Courts now impose reclusion perpetua wherever the code originally prescribed death.⁶

Accessory Penalties

Main prison sentences carry automatic additional sanctions that affect the offender’s civil rights. These attach by operation of law once the principal penalty is imposed.¹

Perpetual absolute disqualification strips the offender of all public offices held (even elected ones), the right to vote, the right to run for office, and any retirement pay from former government service.
Temporary absolute disqualification has the same effects, but only for the duration of the sentence.
Special disqualification bars the offender from the specific office, profession, or calling connected to the crime.
Civil interdiction removes parental authority, guardianship rights, marital authority over property, and the right to manage or dispose of one’s own property during the sentence.

Civil interdiction catches people off guard. A person sentenced to reclusion temporal or higher loses the ability to sell property, manage investments, or make decisions for their children for the whole sentence. That can create cascading problems for families who depend on the convicted person’s assets.

Fines and Property-Crime Thresholds Under RA 10951

The original 1932 monetary values in the code became badly outdated. Theft of property worth more than 22 pesos once carried a serious prison term. Republic Act 10951, enacted in 2017, overhauled every monetary threshold to reflect current values.⁷

The updated fine classifications:

Afflictive fine: exceeds ₱1,200,000
Correctional fine: ₱40,000 to ₱1,200,000
Light fine: below ₱40,000

Theft

Under RA 10951’s revised thresholds, theft penalties scale with the value of the property taken:

Over ₱1,200,000 to ₱2,200,000: prision mayor minimum and medium (6 years and 1 day to 10 years). If the value exceeds ₱2,200,000, one year is added for each additional ₱1,000,000, up to a maximum of 20 years.
Over ₱600,000 to ₱1,200,000: prision correccional medium and maximum.
Over ₱20,000 to ₱600,000: prision correccional minimum and medium.
Over ₱5,000 to ₱20,000: arresto mayor medium to prision correccional minimum.
₱500 to ₱5,000: arresto mayor full extent.
₱500 or less: arresto mayor minimum and medium.

Swindling (Estafa)

Fraud-based crimes follow a similar tiered structure:

Over ₱2,400,000 to ₱4,400,000: prision correccional maximum to prision mayor minimum. If the fraud exceeds ₱4,400,000, one year is added for each additional ₱2,000,000, up to 20 years total.
Over ₱1,200,000 to ₱2,400,000: prision correccional minimum and medium.
Over ₱40,000 to ₱1,200,000: arresto mayor maximum to prision correccional minimum.
₱40,000 or less: arresto mayor medium and maximum.

Murder and Homicide

Homicide, meaning killing another person without any qualifying aggravating circumstance, carries reclusion temporal: 12 years and 1 day to 20 years.⁸ Murder is homicide committed under any of six qualifying circumstances: treachery, committing the act for a price or reward, using especially destructive means like fire or explosion, taking advantage of a public calamity, acting with evident premeditation, or inflicting suffering beyond what is needed to cause death. Murder originally carried reclusion temporal maximum to death, but since the death penalty is prohibited, it is now punished by reclusion perpetua.⁶

Complex Crimes

Article 48 addresses situations where a single act produces two or more separate crimes, or where one crime is committed as a necessary step to carry out another. In either case, the court imposes the penalty for the most serious crime, applied at its maximum.¹ If a person throws a grenade into a crowd and kills three people, that single act constitutes multiple counts of murder, but the penalty for murder is imposed at its maximum rather than stacked as three separate sentences. The practical effect is that complex crimes often result in the heaviest possible penalty for the gravest offense involved.

Civil Liability From a Conviction

Article 100 establishes a principle that catches many defendants off guard: every person found criminally liable for a felony is automatically civilly liable too. A criminal conviction does not only mean prison time; it also means the offender owes the victim money.¹

Article 104 breaks that civil liability into three components:

Restitution. Returning the actual thing taken or damaged whenever possible. Under Article 105, the item must be returned even if a third party has since acquired it through legal means; that third party would then have to seek recourse against the person who sold or transferred it.
Reparation. Paying for the damage caused, based on the value of the property involved and any special sentimental value it held for the victim.
Indemnification. Covering consequential damages such as lost income or medical expenses.

Even when criminal liability is extinguished (for example, through an exempting circumstance like the offender’s age), civil liability can survive. The victim’s right to compensation exists independently of the state’s right to punish.

Time Limits for Prosecution and Punishment

The code sets deadlines on both filing charges and enforcing a sentence. After enough time passes without action, the state loses its right to proceed.

Prescription of Crimes

Article 90 ties the deadline to the severity of the offense:²

20 years for crimes punishable by reclusion perpetua or reclusion temporal
15 years for crimes carrying other afflictive penalties
10 years for crimes carrying correctional penalties (except arresto mayor)
5 years for crimes punishable by arresto mayor
1 year for libel
6 months for oral defamation and slander by deed
2 months for light offenses

Under Article 91, the clock starts on the day the crime is discovered by the victim, the authorities, or their agents, not necessarily the day it was committed. Filing a criminal complaint or information in court stops the clock. If the case is later dismissed without a conviction or acquittal, the clock starts running again.

Prescription of Penalties

Article 92 sets separate deadlines for enforcing a sentence after conviction. If a convicted person escapes and is not recaptured within the prescribed period, the sentence can no longer be carried out:¹

20 years for reclusion perpetua
15 years for other afflictive penalties
10 years for correctional penalties, except arresto mayor, which prescribes in 5 years
1 year for light penalties

The period starts running from the date the convict evades service of the sentence. It is interrupted if the convict surrenders, is recaptured, or commits another crime.

The Indeterminate Sentence Law

Act No. 4103, the Indeterminate Sentence Law, changes how prison terms work in practice. Rather than sentencing a person to a single fixed term, courts must impose a range with a minimum and a maximum. The maximum is the penalty properly computed under the code’s rules. The minimum cannot be lower than the next penalty level down from what the code prescribes.⁹

Once a prisoner has served the minimum term, the Board of Pardons and Parole evaluates whether release on parole is appropriate, based on behavior, mental and physical condition, and likelihood of reoffending. A paroled person remains under surveillance for the remainder of the maximum sentence and can be re-imprisoned for the unexpired portion if they violate any parole condition or commit a new crime.

Not everyone qualifies. The law excludes persons sentenced to reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment, those convicted of treason, sedition, espionage, or piracy, habitual offenders, escapees, and those whose maximum sentence is one year or less.

When the Code Does Not Apply

Many of the most commonly prosecuted crimes today are defined not by the Revised Penal Code but by special statutes: the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act (RA 9165), the Anti-Violence Against Women and Their Children Act (RA 9262), the Cybercrime Prevention Act (RA 10175), and the firearms regulation law (RA 10591), among others. Article 10 provides that offenses punished under special laws are not governed by the code’s provisions, but the code acts as a supplement to those laws unless the special law says otherwise.¹ Some special laws explicitly bar the application of the Indeterminate Sentence Law or the code’s mitigating circumstances. When charges fall under a special law, the first question is always whether the general provisions above apply, or whether the special law has carved out its own rules.

1
The Lawphil Project. Revised Penal Code of the Philippines
2
United Nations. The Revised Penal Code of the Philippines
3
Supreme Court E-Library. Republic Act No. 9344
4
Philippine Commission on Women. Act No. 3815 – The Revised Penal Code
5
Supreme Court E-Library. Revised Penal Code of the Philippines – Article 27
6
Supreme Court E-Library. Republic Act No. 9346 – An Act Prohibiting the Imposition of Death Penalty in the Philippines
7
Supreme Court E-Library. Republic Act No. 10951
8
Supreme Court E-Library. Revised Penal Code of the Philippines – Article 249
9
Supreme Court E-Library. Act No. 4103 – An Act to Provide for an Indeterminate Sentence and Parole