The Revised Penal Code, Book 2: Specific Felonies

Why Book 2 wins points

Book 1 gives you the framework; Book 2 (Articles 114 onward) gives you the felonies themselves. Most Criminal Jurisprudence fact patterns hand you a story and ask two things: name the crime and tell it apart from its near neighbor. That is why this lesson drills elements and distinctions, not amounts. Remember that RA 10951 (2017) re-set the peso value brackets and fines in the RPC, so a smart examiner will never make the answer hinge on a specific peso figure or an exact penalty duration. Learn what makes a killing murder rather than homicide, or a taking robbery rather than theft, and you can answer even when the numbers change.

Crimes against persons: killing and hurting

Four unlawful killings look alike until you check who the victim is and how the killing was done.

• Parricide (Art. 246): the victim is the offender's spouse, or a legitimate or illegitimate ascendant or descendant, or legitimate or illegitimate parent or child. The special relationship is the element. A brother, sister, uncle, or in-law is a collateral relative and is not covered.
• Murder (Art. 248): an unlawful killing attended by at least one qualifying circumstance, such as treachery, evident premeditation, cruelty, in consideration of a price or reward, or by means of fire, poison, or explosion.
• Homicide (Art. 249): an unlawful killing with no qualifying circumstance and not covered by parricide or infanticide. Intent to kill (animus interficendi) must be shown, especially in the attempted or frustrated stage.
• Infanticide (Art. 255): the killing of a child less than three days (72 hours) old. Once the child is three days old or more, the same act is parricide, murder, or homicide.

For hurting short of killing, physical injuries are graded by the harm: serious (Art. 263: loss of a body part, insanity, or incapacity beyond thirty days), less serious (Art. 265: incapacity or medical attendance of ten to thirty days), and slight (Art. 266: incapacity of one to nine days or none). Do not confuse these with mutilation (Art. 262), the deliberate lopping off of a body part.

Crimes against property: taking and burning

The great divide in property crime is how the thing was taken.

• Robbery (Art. 293): taking personal property of another, with intent to gain, by violence against or intimidation of persons, or force upon things.
• Theft (Art. 308): the same taking without any violence, intimidation, or force upon things.
• Qualified theft (Art. 310): theft attended by grave abuse of confidence (as by a domestic servant, cashier, or trusted employee), punished more severely than simple theft.
• Estafa or swindling (Art. 315): its two indispensable elements are deceit or abuse of confidence and resulting damage or prejudice.

The classic trap is estafa versus theft. If the offender only had material (physical) possession of the thing and took it against the owner's will, it is theft. If the owner handed it over so that the offender acquired juridical possession (a collecting agent or trustee who was supposed to account for it) and the offender then misappropriated it, it is estafa.

Arson is the malicious burning of property, governed today by Presidential Decree No. 1613 (simple arson) and by the RPC as amended by RA 7659 (destructive arson). When a person dies in a fire, look at the offender's main objective: if the primary intent was to burn and death merely resulted, the crime is arson; if the intent was to kill and fire was only the means, the crime is murder.

Crimes against chastity and RA 8353

Before 1997, rape sat among the crimes against chastity. RA 8353 (the Anti-Rape Law of 1997) reclassified rape as a crime against persons and inserted it as Articles 266-A to 266-D. Because it is now a crime against persons, rape is a public crime prosecuted by the State on its own, unlike the true crimes against chastity, which are private.

Article 266-A recognizes two modes: rape by carnal knowledge (committed by a man against a woman through force, threat, or intimidation, or when she is deprived of reason or unconscious, or is under the age of consent) and rape by sexual assault (inserting the penis into another's mouth or anal orifice, or inserting any instrument or object into the genital or anal orifice). RA 11648 (2022) later raised the age for statutory rape to a victim under 16. The RPC also recognizes marital rape (Art. 266-C).

The remaining crimes against chastity stay private. Watch the pair adultery versus concubinage: adultery (Art. 333) is committed by a married woman who has sexual intercourse with a man, and by that man; concubinage (Art. 334) is committed by a married man only under specific circumstances (keeping a mistress in the conjugal dwelling, cohabiting with her elsewhere, or under scandalous circumstances).

Crimes against honor

Defamation is graded by the medium. Libel (Art. 353, 355) is a public and malicious imputation of a crime, vice, or defect made by writing, printing, or similar means. Oral defamation or slander (Art. 358) is the same imputation made by spoken word. Slander by deed (Art. 359) is defamation committed by an act, such as slapping someone in public to cast dishonor. In libel, malice is presumed once the defamatory imputation is shown, unless the matter is privileged.

Crimes against public order

Two uprisings are easy to swap. Rebellion (Art. 134) is a public and armed uprising to remove allegiance to the government or to deprive the Chief Executive or Congress of their powers. Sedition (Art. 139) is a public and tumultuous uprising to prevent, by force or intimidation, the execution of a law or the performance of an official duty, without seeking to overthrow the government.

Direct assault (Art. 148) is committed by one who attacks or seriously intimidates a person in authority or an agent of a person in authority while engaged in official duties or on the occasion thereof. A judge, mayor, barangay chairman, and (in relation to their students) a teacher are persons in authority; a police officer and a barangay tanod are agents.

Exam-day strategy

• When a story describes a killing, run the checklist in order: victim's relationship (parricide?), then victim's age (infanticide if under three days), then any qualifying circumstance (murder), else homicide.
• For a taking, ask first: was there violence, intimidation, or force upon things? Yes points to robbery; no points to theft or, if possession was juridical, estafa.
• Never pick an answer because of a peso figure. RA 10951 moved those brackets. Anchor on the element the story is testing.
• Match the medium to the honor crime: written is libel, spoken is slander, an act is slander by deed.
• Keep your law tags ready: rape sits in the RPC by RA 8353, arson largely under PD 1613, and value brackets under RA 10951.