Revised Penal Code

The Revised Penal Code contains the general penal laws of the Philippines. It was promulgated in 1930.

Historical Background

The Revised Penal Code supplanted the Spanish Penal Code, which was in force in the Philippines from 1886 to 1930. The new Code was drafted by a committee created in 1927, and headed by Judge Anacleto Diaz, who would later serve on the Supreme Court. Rather than engage in a wholesale codification of all penal laws in the Philippines, the committee instead revised the old Penal Code and included all other penal laws only insofar as they related to the Penal Code.

Features

The Revised Penal Code criminalizes a whole class of acts that are generally accepted as criminal, such as the taking of a life whether through murder or homicide, rape, robbery and theft, and treason. The Code expressly defines the elements that consist each crime, and the existence all these elements have to be proven beyond reasonable doubt in order to secure conviction. The most notable crimes excluded in the Revised Penal Code are those concerning illegal drug use or trafficking, which are penalized instead under the Dangerous Drugs Act of 1972 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

One of the more unique aspects of the Revised Penal Code center on its classification of aggravating, exempting and mitigating circumstances, the appreciation of which affects the graduation of penalties. Penalties under the Revised Penal Code are generally divided into three periods – the minimum period, the medium period, and the maximum period. In addition to establishing the elements of the crime, the prosecution may also establish the presence of aggravating circumstances in order to set the penalty at the maximum period, or mitigating circumstances to reduce the penalty to its minimum period. The presence of both aggravating and mitigating circumstance, or the absence of such circumstances, may result in the imposition of the penalty in its medium period.

With the abolition of the death penalty in 2006, the highest penalty currently imposable under the Revised Penal Code is reclusion perpetua, which ranges from 20 years to 40 years imprisonment. The penalty of life imprisonment is not provided for in the Revised Penal Code, although it is imposed by other penal statutes such as the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act.

External links

• Revised Penal Code - from Chan Robles Virtual Law Library