What Is Prision Mayor? Duration, Penalties, and Sentencing

Prisión mayor is a penalty under the Philippine Revised Penal Code that means imprisonment from six years and one day to twelve years. It is classified as an afflictive penalty, which places it among the more severe punishments Philippine courts can impose, sitting below reclusión temporal and reclusión perpetua but above the correctional penalties. The actual time a convicted person spends in prison depends on three things: the circumstances of the offense, the Indeterminate Sentence Law, and good conduct credits earned while serving.¹

Duration and the Three Periods

Article 27 of the Revised Penal Code fixes the full range of prisión mayor at six years and one day to twelve years.² That range is divided into three equal periods:

Minimum period: six years and one day to eight years
Medium period: eight years and one day to ten years
Maximum period: ten years and one day to twelve years

These periods are not sentencing suggestions. Article 76 fixes the exact time included in each, and the judge must sentence within whichever period the circumstances dictate.¹ The three-period structure also feeds into the Indeterminate Sentence Law, which produces a minimum-to-maximum range rather than a single fixed term.

Where Prisión Mayor Sits on the Penalty Scale

Philippine criminal penalties are graded from lightest to most severe. Article 25 groups them into three tiers, with prisión mayor at the bottom of the afflictive category:

Afflictive penalties: reclusión perpetua, reclusión temporal, perpetual or temporary absolute disqualification, perpetual or temporary special disqualification, and prisión mayor
Correctional penalties: prisión correccional, arresto mayor, suspension, and destierro
Light penalties: arresto menor and public censure

This ranking has real consequences. When a court needs to raise or lower the penalty by one degree, the graduated scale in Article 71 tells it where to land. One degree below prisión mayor is prisión correccional (six months and one day to six years). One degree above is reclusión temporal (twelve years and one day to twenty years).² The scale also determines how long the penalty takes to prescribe and which accessory penalties attach automatically.

Crimes Punishable by Prisión Mayor

Many offenses across the Revised Penal Code carry prisión mayor, either as the whole penalty or as part of a range.

Crimes against national security and public order supply several examples. Conspiracy to commit treason under Article 115 carries prisión mayor. Inciting a foreign power to war against the Philippines under Article 118 carries the same penalty for private individuals. Participation in a coup d’état by someone not in government service is punished with prisión mayor in its maximum period under Article 135, and leading a sedition carries prisión mayor in its minimum period under Article 140.³

Arbitrary detention by a public officer falls within prisión mayor when the detention lasts more than fifteen days but not more than six months, under Article 124.³

Several forgery and counterfeiting offenses also land here. Using a forged government seal or signature (Article 162), counterfeiting Philippine silver coins or Central Bank coins of ten centavos or higher (Article 163), and forging bank notes (Article 166) all fall within periods of prisión mayor.³

Theft above certain value thresholds reaches prisión mayor as well. Under Article 309, theft of property above a set amount is punished by prisión mayor in its minimum and medium periods. Qualified theft under Article 310 raises the penalty by two degrees, which can push certain cases into the prisión mayor range or higher.² Republic Act No. 10951 (2017) adjusted many of these peso thresholds, so the amounts triggering each level today differ from the original 1930 figures.

Beyond the Revised Penal Code, many special penal laws prescribe penalties in the prisión mayor range for offenses such as illegal possession of firearms, certain drug-related crimes, and election law violations.

How the Court Picks the Exact Term

When a crime carries prisión mayor, the judge does not freely pick a number inside the six-to-twelve-year range. Articles 62 through 64 of the Revised Penal Code set precise rules keyed to the circumstances present during the offense.²

No mitigating or aggravating circumstances: sentence in the medium period (eight years and one day to ten years).
Only mitigating circumstances: sentence in the minimum period (six years and one day to eight years).
Only aggravating circumstances: sentence in the maximum period (ten years and one day to twelve years).
Both mitigating and aggravating: the court offsets them and sentences according to the net result.
Two or more mitigating circumstances with no aggravating: the court may drop the penalty one full degree, moving the sentence into the prisión correccional range.

There is one firm ceiling. No matter how many aggravating circumstances are present, the court cannot exceed the maximum period of the penalty prescribed by law for the offense (Article 64, Rule 6).² Aggravating circumstances push the sentence to the top of the bracket. They do not, on their own, bump it into the next degree.

The Indeterminate Sentence Law

For most offenses under the Revised Penal Code, the court does not hand down a single fixed term. The Indeterminate Sentence Law (Act No. 4103) requires the judge to impose two figures: a minimum and a maximum.⁴

The maximum is whatever the court would properly impose under the mitigating and aggravating rules above, drawn from the correct period of prisión mayor. The minimum must not be lower than the minimum imprisonment period of the penalty one degree below. For prisión mayor, that next-lower penalty is prisión correccional (six months and one day to six years). So the court sets a minimum from the prisión correccional range and a maximum from the appropriate period of prisión mayor.

Once the convicted person has served the minimum term, the case becomes eligible for parole review by the Board of Pardons and Parole. Two people convicted of the same crime under the same circumstances can serve different actual time, depending on behavior in prison and the board’s assessment.

Accessory Penalties

A prisión mayor sentence does not end with imprisonment. Article 42 attaches two accessory penalties automatically to every prisión mayor conviction:¹

Temporary absolute disqualification. The convicted person loses all public offices and employment held at the time of conviction, along with the right to vote and hold public office, for the duration of the sentence.
Perpetual special disqualification from the right of suffrage. The convicted person permanently loses the right to vote. This disqualification survives even a pardon of the prison sentence itself, unless the pardon expressly restores it.

That second point surprises many people. A presidential pardon that remits the prison term does not automatically return voting rights. The pardon has to say so. Without that language, the disqualification from suffrage stays for life.

Good Conduct Time Allowance

Republic Act No. 10592 expanded the good conduct time allowance (GCTA) available to prisoners. Under the implementing rules, a qualifying prisoner earns deductions from the remaining sentence for each month of good behavior:⁵

First two years: twenty days off per month of good behavior
Third through fifth year: twenty-three days off per month
Sixth through tenth year: twenty-five days off per month
Eleventh year onward: thirty days off per month

These credits add up quickly. A prisoner sentenced to the medium period of prisión mayor who maintains good behavior throughout can see the time behind bars reduced substantially. GCTA also applies to time served in detention before conviction, so pre-trial detention counts toward the deductions.

Prescription of the Penalty

A sentence of prisión mayor that is imposed by final judgment but never carried out does not hang over the convicted person forever. Under Article 92, afflictive penalties prescribe after fifteen years.³ Because prisión mayor is afflictive, a person who evades the sentence for fifteen years after the judgment becomes final can no longer be compelled to serve it.

The clock starts on the date the judgment becomes final and executory, or on the date the convicted person breaks out of confinement if the sentence had already begun. Prescription is interrupted if the person is captured or voluntarily surrenders, and it starts again from zero if the person escapes once more.

1
Supreme Court E-Library. Act No. 3815 – Revised Penal Code
2
Lawphil. Revised Penal Code of the Philippines
3
Philippine Commission on Women. Act No. 3815 – The Revised Penal Code
4
Supreme Court E-Library. Act No. 4103 – Indeterminate Sentence Law
5
Supreme Court E-Library. Republic Act No. 10592 – Implementing Rules and Regulations