Applying the Penalty Prescribed by Law
The penalty stated in the penal provision is the starting penalty, not always the final sentence. For a principal in a consummated felony, the penalty prescribed by law is imposed unless the Code, a special law, the stage of execution, the degree of participation, a privileged circumstance, or a rule on complex crimes changes it.
Application of penalties has two distinct operations. Graduation by degree moves the penalty upward or downward in the graduated scale, as when the offender is an accomplice, the felony is frustrated, or a privileged mitigating circumstance is present. Selection by period chooses the minimum, medium, or maximum portion of a divisible penalty after the proper degree has been reached.
A degree is a step in the legal ladder of penalties. A period is a subdivision within a divisible penalty. Ordinary mitigating and aggravating circumstances generally affect only the period; privileged mitigating circumstances affect the degree and cannot be offset by ordinary aggravating circumstances.
The usual sentencing sequence is: identify the felony and the penalty prescribed by law; determine whether the felony is consummated, frustrated, attempted, impossible, complex, or specially complex; determine whether the offender is a principal, accomplice, or accessory; apply privileged circumstances and statutory rules that lower or raise the degree; select the proper period through ordinary modifying circumstances; then fix the indeterminate sentence when the Indeterminate Sentence Law applies.
Stage of Execution and Participation
The Code fixes the penalty for principals in consummated felonies as the reference point. Other stages and forms of participation are measured from that reference unless the law expressly provides a different penalty.
| Offender and stage | Penalty relative to the principal in a consummated felony |
|---|---|
| Principal in a consummated felony | Penalty prescribed by law |
| Principal in a frustrated felony | One degree lower |
| Principal in an attempted felony | Two degrees lower |
| Accomplice in a consummated felony | One degree lower |
| Accessory in a consummated felony | Two degrees lower |
| Accomplice in a frustrated felony | Two degrees lower |
| Accessory in a frustrated felony | Three degrees lower |
| Accomplice in an attempted felony | Three degrees lower |
| Accessory in an attempted felony | Four degrees lower |
These reductions do not apply when the penal provision itself fixes the penalty for the frustrated or attempted felony, or for the accomplice or accessory. They also yield to special penal laws that create their own attempted, frustrated, conspiratorial, or participatory offenses with separate penalties.
The reduction for stage is based on the nature of the felony, not merely on the result charged. A felony is frustrated only when the offender performs all acts of execution that should produce the felony as a consequence, but the felony is not produced by causes independent of the offender's will. A felony is attempted when the offender begins the commission directly by overt acts but does not perform all acts of execution by reason of a cause other than spontaneous desistance.
Participation is determined before the penalty is graduated. A principal by direct participation, inducement, or indispensable cooperation remains within the penalty for principals. An accomplice cooperates by previous or simultaneous acts that are not indispensable. An accessory participates after the fact in the limited modes recognized by law and generally is punished only in grave or less grave felonies.
Graduating Penalties by Degree
Graduation is governed by the form of the penalty prescribed. The court does not simply subtract years. It moves through the graduated scale and, for composite penalties, carries down the proper periods required by the Code.
| Form of penalty prescribed | How the next lower degree is found | Illustration |
|---|---|---|
| Single indivisible penalty | Use the penalty immediately following it in the proper graduated scale | Reclusion perpetua lowers to reclusion temporal |
| Two indivisible penalties | Use the penalty immediately following the lesser indivisible penalty | Death to reclusion perpetua lowers to reclusion temporal, subject to the abolition of death as an imposable penalty |
| One or two indivisible penalties plus the maximum period of a divisible penalty | Take the medium and minimum periods of that divisible penalty plus the maximum period of the next lower penalty | Reclusion temporal maximum to reclusion perpetua lowers to prision mayor maximum to reclusion temporal medium |
| Several periods belonging to different divisible penalties | Take the period immediately below the minimum period prescribed and the next two lower periods | Prision correccional maximum to prision mayor medium lowers to arresto mayor maximum to prision correccional medium |
| Two periods of a divisible penalty | Take the two periods immediately below the lesser period prescribed | Prision mayor minimum and medium lowers to prision correccional medium and maximum |
| One period of a divisible penalty | Take the next two lower periods in the scale | Prision mayor maximum lowers to prision mayor minimum and medium |
If more than one degree must be lowered, the court repeats the operation from the penalty last reached. The result must remain within the legal scale; graduation is a statutory method, not a free estimate of proportional punishment.
Graduated Scales
The main personal penalty scale descends from death, reclusion perpetua, reclusion temporal, prision mayor, prision correccional, arresto mayor, destierro, arresto menor, public censure, and fine. Death remains a historical reference in the scale, but it is not presently imposable; where an older RPC-based provision states death, current law substitutes reclusion perpetua in the manner provided by the abolition statute.
The disqualification scale descends from perpetual absolute disqualification, temporary absolute disqualification, suspension from public office, the right to vote and be voted for, or the right to follow a profession or calling, then public censure, then fine. The proper scale depends on the nature of the penalty being graduated.
Destierro is lower than arresto mayor and higher than arresto menor in the personal scale. It is not imprisonment, but it is a principal penalty and may be the correct next lower penalty when the scale places it there.
Periods of Divisible Penalties
Divisible penalties are divided into minimum, medium, and maximum periods. When the penalty prescribed is a range made up of different penalties or periods, the Code supplies rules for treating the composite range as a single penalty for purposes of period selection.
| Penalty | Minimum period | Medium period | Maximum period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arresto menor | 1 to 10 days | 11 to 20 days | 21 to 30 days |
| Arresto mayor | 1 month and 1 day to 2 months | 2 months and 1 day to 4 months | 4 months and 1 day to 6 months |
| Prision correccional | 6 months and 1 day to 2 years and 4 months | 2 years, 4 months and 1 day to 4 years and 2 months | 4 years, 2 months and 1 day to 6 years |
| Prision mayor | 6 years and 1 day to 8 years | 8 years and 1 day to 10 years | 10 years and 1 day to 12 years |
| Reclusion temporal | 12 years and 1 day to 14 years and 8 months | 14 years, 8 months and 1 day to 17 years and 4 months | 17 years, 4 months and 1 day to 20 years |
Reclusion perpetua is indivisible even though it has a statutory duration for purposes such as service of sentence and the three-fold rule. It is not divided into minimum, medium, and maximum periods for ordinary mitigating or aggravating circumstances.
Ordinary Modifying Circumstances
After the correct degree is determined, ordinary mitigating and aggravating circumstances guide the choice of period. For a divisible penalty, absence of both ordinarily places the penalty in the medium period. One ordinary mitigating circumstance and no aggravating circumstance places it in the minimum period. One aggravating circumstance and no mitigating circumstance places it in the maximum period.
When ordinary mitigating and aggravating circumstances are both present, the court offsets them according to their relative weight. If two or more ordinary mitigating circumstances and no aggravating circumstance are present, the court may impose the penalty next lower in degree, in the period proper to the case. Ordinary aggravating circumstances cannot raise the penalty beyond the maximum prescribed by law.
For a penalty composed of two indivisible penalties, the greater penalty is imposed when an aggravating circumstance is present; the lesser penalty is imposed when there is no modifying circumstance or when only a mitigating circumstance is present. If both mitigating and aggravating circumstances are present, the court offsets them by relative weight. A single indivisible penalty is imposed regardless of ordinary modifying circumstances, unless a privileged circumstance or special rule changes the degree.
A circumstance already included in the definition of the felony, inherent in its commission, or used by law to prescribe a higher penalty cannot again increase the penalty as a generic aggravating circumstance. A qualifying circumstance changes the nature of the offense or the prescribed penalty; a generic aggravating circumstance merely affects the period. The same fact cannot be counted twice.
Personal circumstances, such as those arising from moral attributes or private relations, affect only the offender to whom they attach. Circumstances involving the means or manner of execution affect only participants who knew of them when they cooperated. This rule prevents the penalty of one participant from being aggravated by a fact that was personal to another or unknown to him.
Some statutory aggravating rules directly command the maximum period, such as when the offender takes advantage of public position or belongs to an organized or syndicated crime group as defined by law. These provisions operate because the statute itself fixes their sentencing effect.
Privileged Mitigation and Special Reductions
Privileged mitigating circumstances reduce the penalty by degree before ordinary circumstances are considered. They are not offset by generic aggravating circumstances because they arise from a legal policy that changes the offender's penal exposure itself.
Minority is a privileged mitigating circumstance for a child above fifteen but below eighteen years of age who acted with discernment, subject to the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act. A child fifteen years old or below is exempt from criminal liability and is subject to intervention, while a child above fifteen but below eighteen who acted without discernment is likewise exempt.
Incomplete justification or incomplete exemption may lower the penalty by one or two degrees when the majority of the requisites of the justifying or exempting circumstance are present. The reduction recognizes that the act remains criminal but the actor's blameworthiness is substantially reduced by facts closely approaching a full defense.
An impossible crime is punished differently from an attempted felony. The offender has criminal intent and performs acts that would be an offense against persons or property, but the intended crime is legally or factually impossible of accomplishment or the means employed are inadequate or ineffectual. The Code imposes arresto mayor or a fine within the statutory range, considering social danger and the degree of criminality shown.
Complex Crimes
Article 48 applies when a single act constitutes two or more grave or less grave felonies, or when one offense is a necessary means for committing another. The penalty for the most serious felony is imposed in its maximum period. This is a rule of penalty based on unity of act or necessary means, not a license to combine unrelated offenses.
A compound crime arises from one act producing multiple grave or less grave felonies. A complex crime proper arises when one felony is a necessary means to commit another, meaning the first offense is indispensable to the commission of the second in the concrete case. Mere convenience, concealment, or chronological sequence does not make one offense a necessary means.
Article 48 does not apply when the law treats the combination as a special complex crime and prescribes a single penalty. In special complex crimes, such as statutory combinations where one offense is absorbed as an element or qualifying component, the penalty comes from the specific provision, not from the general complex-crime rule.
Article 48 also does not apply when the acts are distinct and separately punishable, when one offense is absorbed by a special doctrine, or when a light felony is merely incidental to a grave or less grave felony in a way not covered by the provision. The decisive inquiry is whether the law punishes the conduct as one penal unit or as separate offenses.
Indeterminate Sentences
When the Indeterminate Sentence Law applies to an RPC offense, the maximum term is chosen from the penalty properly imposable after considering the degree, period, and attending circumstances. The minimum term is chosen from the range of the penalty next lower in degree to the penalty legally prescribed or adjusted for the offense before ordinary modifying circumstances are used to select the maximum.
For offenses punished by special laws, the indeterminate sentence is fixed within the minimum and maximum limits provided by the special law, unless the special law adopts RPC nomenclature or otherwise makes RPC graduation applicable. The statutory range, not the RPC scale by default, controls the minimum and maximum.
The law on indeterminate sentences does not apply to excluded cases, including sentences of reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment, maximum terms not exceeding one year, habitual delinquency, escape or evasion situations, violation of conditional pardon, and specified offenses against national security and public order. When the sentence is reclusion perpetua, no minimum term is imposed.
Special Penal Laws and RPC Penalties
RPC rules apply suppletorily to special penal laws only when compatible with the special law and not displaced by its text or policy. If a special law provides a straight range of imprisonment without adopting RPC periods, the court applies that range and the Indeterminate Sentence Law in the manner for special laws.
When a special law uses RPC nomenclature such as prision correccional, prision mayor, reclusion temporal, or reclusion perpetua, the consequences of those penalties may follow unless the statute indicates a different treatment. Reclusion perpetua is an RPC penalty with accessory consequences; life imprisonment is generally a penalty of special law and is not automatically identical in duration, accessories, or graduation.
Conspiracy and proposal are punishable only when the law specifically penalizes them. If a special law punishes conspiracy as a distinct offense, the penalty is the one stated in that law, not a penalty graduated from a principal consummated felony under the general rules.
Accessory Penalties, Multiple Sentences, and Service
Principal penalties carry accessory penalties when the Code so provides, and the accessory penalties are deemed included even if the judgment does not expressly recite them. This matters for civil interdiction, disqualification, suspension, and other legal disabilities attached to the principal penalty imposed.
When several penalties are imposed and their nature permits simultaneous service, they are served simultaneously. When simultaneous service is not possible, they are served successively in the order of severity fixed by law.
The three-fold rule limits the maximum duration of successive service. The convict shall not serve more than three times the length of the most severe penalty imposed, and in no case more than forty years. The rule limits service of sentence; it does not erase the convictions or their collateral legal effects.
Fines are imposed within the limits fixed by law, with due regard to the offender's means and the gravity of the offense. When a fine is the principal penalty and the law requires increase or reduction by degree, the Code supplies a special method for adjusting the amount rather than using the imprisonment scale mechanically.