10th Reading Assignment

Article 10. Offenses not subject to the provisions of this code. --Offenses which
are or in the future may be punishable under special laws are not subject to the
provisions of this Code. This Code shall be supplementary to such laws, unless
the latter should specially provide the contrary.

 For Special Laws: Penalties should be imprisonment, and not reclusion

perpetua, etc.

 Offenses that are attempted or frustrated are not punishable, unless

otherwise stated.

 Plea of guilty is not mitigating for offenses punishable by special laws.

 No minimum, medium, and maximum periods for penalties.

 No penalty for an accessory or accomplice, unless otherwise stated.

You will only apply the provisions of the Revised Penal Code as a supplement to
the special law, or simply correlate the violated special law, if needed to avoid an
injustice. If no justice would result, do not give suppletorily application of the
Revised Penal Code to that of special law.

Article 11. (This talks about JUSTIFYING CIRCUMSTANCES)

Circumstances affecting criminal liability

There are five circumstances affecting criminal liability: (JEMAA)

1. Justifying circumstances;

2. Exempting circumstances;

3. Mitigating circumstances;

4. Aggravating circumstances; and

 5. Alternative circumstances.

FIRST, WE WILL DISCUSS WHAT IS JUSTIFYING CIRCUMSTANCE

Ang Justifying Circumstance makita ni sa Article 11 sa atong Revised Penal Code,

and Definition niya;

Justifying circumstances are those wherein the acts of the actor are in

accordance with law and, hence, he incurs no criminal and civil liability. The
justifying circumstances by subject are as follows:

Basic lang: mag-ingon tag Justifying Circumstance, ang gihimo nimo nga “krimen”
justifiable, so kung “justifiable” dili ka liable sa mata sa balaod.

Examples niya kay:

1. Self-defense

Anyone who acts in defense of his person or rights. (Art. 11, Par. 1) The scope
included self-defense not only of life, but also of rights like those of chastity,
property and honor. It has also been applied to the crime of libel. (People v Chua
Chiong, 51 OG 1932)

Its elements are:

Dapat naa ning tatlo para maka-avail ka ug Self Defense.

a. Unlawful aggression
Aggression is considered unlawful when it is unprovoked or unjustified. There
must be real danger to life or personal safety. An imminent danger of aggression,
and not merely imaginary, is sufficient. A slap on the face is actual unlawful
aggression. (Dec., Sup. Ct. of Spain, March 8, 1887)

There is no unlawful aggression exists in a case of an agreed fight. To constitute

an agreement to fight, the challenge must be accepted. (People v. Del Pilar, 44 OG
596) Unlawful aggression may no longer exist if the aggressor ran away after the
attack. (People v. Alconga, 78 Phil. 366) If the aggression has ceased, the one
defending himself has no right to inflict any further injury to his assailant. (Q11,
1993 Bar)

Mere oral threat to kill, unaccompanied by any unequivocal act clearly indicative
of the intent to carry out the threat, does not amount to unlawful aggression.
(People v. Binondo, 97227, Oct. 20, 1992) The mere cocking of an M-14 rifle by
the victim, without aiming the firearm at any particular person is not sufficient to
conclude that the life of the person (Vice-Governor) whom the accused was
allegedly protecting, was under actual threat or attack from the victim. There is
no unlawful aggression. (Almeda v. CA, March 13, 1997)

b. Reasonable necessity of the means employed to prevent or repel it.

The rule “stand ground when in the right” applies when a person is unlawfully
assaulted and if the aggressor is armed with a weapon. (US v. Domen, 37 Phils.
57) Whether the means employed is reasonable or not it will depend upon the
kind of weapon of the aggressor, his physical condition, character, size and other
circumstances as well as those of the person attacked and the time and place of
the attack. (People v. Padua, 40 OG 998) The instinct of self-preservation more
often than not is the moving power in man’s action in defending himself. (People
v. Artuz, 71 SCRA 116)

c. Lack of sufficient provocation on the part of the person defending himself.

A person may be justified in causing injury to another in defense of his property

(fencing off the house of the accused) even if there was no attack against his
person. To hold otherwise would render nugatory the provisions of circumstance
No. 1 which recognizes the right of an individual to defend his rights, one of which
is to own and enjoy his property. (People v. Narvaez, 121 SCRA 389) Even
assuming that the victim was scaling the wall of the factory compound to commit
the crime inside the same, shooting him is never justifiable, even admitting that
such act is considered unlawful aggression on the property rights. In the instant
case, the second element is absent considering that the victim was unarmed.
There is therefore an incomplete self-defense. (Q6, 1996 Bar; Q4, 1990 Bar)

To be entitled to a complete self-defense of chastity, there must be an attempt to

rape. (People v. Jaurigue, 76 Phil. 174)

When a person is libeled, he may hit back with another libel, which, if adequate,
will be justified. Once the aspersion is cast, its sting clings and the one thus
defamed may avail himself of all necessary means to shake it off. (People v. Chua
Hong, 51 OG 1932)

2. Defense of Relative

Anyone who acts in defense of the person or rights of his spouses, ascendants,
descendants, or legitimate or adopted brothers or sisters, or of his relatives by
affinity in the same degrees, and those by consanguinity within the fourth civil
degree, and in case the provocation was given by the person attacked, that the
one making the defense had no part therein. (Art. 11, Par. 2)

Even if two persons agreed to fight, and at the moment when one was about to
stab the other, the brother of the latter arrived and shot him, defense of relative
is present as long as there is an honest belief that the relative being defended was
a victim of an unlawful aggression, and the relative defending had no knowledge
of the agreement to fight. (US v. Esmedia 17 Phil. 280)

3. Defense of Stranger.

Anyone who acts in defense of the person or rights of a stranger and that the
person defending be not induced by revenge, resentment, or other evil motive.
(Art. 11, Par. 3)

A person who struggled with the husband who was attacking his wife with a bolo
for the possession of the bolo and in the course of the struggle, wounded the
husband, was held to have acted in defense of a stranger. (People v. Valdez, 58
Phil. 31)
4. State of Necessity

Any person who, in order to avoid an evil or injury, does an act which causes
damage to another. (Art. 11, Par. 4)

Its requisites are:

a. The evil sought to be avoided actually exists.

b. The injury feared be greater than that done to avoid it.
c. There be no other practical and less harmful means of preventing it.

This is the only justifying circumstances wherein civil liability may arise but this is
borne by the person benefited by his act. The “state of necessity” exists when
there is a clash between two unequal rights, the lesser right giving way to the
greater right.

An accused was acquitted of the crime of slander by deed, when she eloped with
another man after all wedding preparations with the offended party were made,
since there was a necessity on the part of the accused to avoid a loveless
marriage with the offended party. (People v. Hernandez, 55 OG 8465)

In a case when in saving the life of the mother, the doctor sacrificed the life of the
unborn child, is the attending physician criminally liable? No, because his acts are
justified under this Article (State of necessity). However, in mercy killing where
the doctor deliberately turned off the life support system costing the life of the
patient, the doctor is criminally liable. Euthanasia is not a justifying circumstance
in our jurisdiction. (Q3, 1990 Bar)

5. Fulfillment of duty

Any person who acts in the fulfillment of a duty or in the lawful exercise of a right
or office. (Art. 11, Par. 5) The injury caused or the offense committed is the
necessary consequence of the due performance of such right or office.

The killing by a policeman of an escaping detention prisoner is presumed to be

committed in the performance of his official duties. But shooting a thief who
refused to stop inspite of the order of the accused will make him liable as he
exceeded fulfillment of his duty. (People v. Bentres, 49 OG 4919) Also, under
the doctrine of self-help, the law justifies the act of the owner as lawful possessor
of a thing in using such force as is reasonably necessary for the protection of his
proprietary or possessory right. (Art. 429, Civil Code)
With respect to the wounding of the stranger during the commission of crime of
death under exceptional circumstances (Art. 247), the defense of lawful exercise
of a right is a justifying circumstance. (Q14, 1991 Bar)

6. Obedience to superior order

Any person who acts in obedience to an order issued by a superior for some
lawful purpose. (Art. 11, Par. 6)

It is required that the order in itself must be lawful; that it is for a lawful purpose;
and that the person carrying out the order must also act within the law. But even
if the order is illegal if it is patently legal and the subordinate is not aware of its
illegality, the subordinate is not liable. (Nassif v. People, 78 Phil. 67) This is due to
a mistake of fact committed in good faith. Even if the order is illegal, the
subordinate may still invoke the exempting circumstances of compulsion of
irresistible force or acting under the impulse of an uncontrollable fear of an equal
or greater injury.

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