LEGAL ANCHOR IN CRIM LAW

1. The Revised Penal Code is based on classical school of thought.

2. In mala in se, good faith or lack of criminal intent is a defense. In malum prohibita, good faith is
not a defense.
3. Pro reo means, when in doubt, for the accused.
4. Generality means that penal laws are obligatory upon all who live or sojourn in the Philippine
territory EXCEPT principle of international law or laws of preferential application.
5. Territoriality means RPC applies to crimes within the territory of Philippines.
6. Principle of extra-territoriality means Philippines has jurisdiction over crimes committed outside
of Philippines
7. Protective principle gives jurisdiction to Phil court over forgery cases, national security.
8. Universality principle gives jurisdiction to Phil court over piracy.
9. A penal law has prospective application. It may be given retroactive application if the law is
favorable to the accused, who is not habitual delinquent.
10. Bill of attainder is a legislation that inflicts punishment without judicial trial. Expost facto law is a
law which retroactively affects that right or condition of an accused who committed a crime
prior to its effectivity.
11. Felonies are committed by means of deceit (dolo) or by means of fault (culpa).
12. A person incurs criminal liability if he commits a crime although the wrongful done be different
from that which he intended.
13. In error in personae (mistake of identity), a person is criminally liable for committing an
intentional felony although the actual victim is different from the intended victim due to
mistake of identity.
14. Aberratio ictus means mistake of blow.
15. In praiter intentionem, a person incurs criminal liability for committing an intentional felony
although its wrongful consequence is graver than that intended. It is a mitigating
circumstance.
16. Proximate cause refers to that cause, which, in natural and continuous sequence, unbroken
by any efficient intervening cause, produces the injury, and without which the result would not
have occured.
17. Impossible crime is an act which would have been an offense against person or property,
were it not for the inherent impossibility of its accomplishment or on account of the
employment of inadequate or ineffectual means.
18. A felony is at the attempted stage when the offender commences the commission of a felony
by overt acts, and does not perform all the acts of execution which should produce the felony
by reason of some cause or accident other than his own spontaneous desistance.
19. A felony is at the frustrated stage when the offender performs all the acts of execution which
would produce the felony as a consequence but which nevertheless does not produce it by
reason of causes independent of the will of the perpetrator.
20. A felony is at consummated stage when all the elements necessary for its execution and
accomplishment are present.
21. A person is not guilty for committing preparatory act or indeterminate offense.
22. Formal crimes have no attempted or frustrated stage. Examples are slander, perjury, false
testimony, acts of lasciviousness or coup d etat.
23. A conspiracy exists when two or more persons agree to commit a felony and decide to do it.
24. In conspiracy, the act of one is the act of all.
25. Conspiracy and proposal to commit felony are punishable only in cases when the law
specifically provides a penalty therefor.
26. Doctrine of imputability means the act of an offender is imputable to his co-conspirator
although they are not similarly situated in relation to the object of the crime.
27. A recidivist is one who, at the time of his trial for one crime, shall have been previously
convicted by final judgment of another crime embraced in the same title of this Code.
28. There is reiteracion when the offender has been previously punished for an offense to which
the law attaches an equal or greater penalty or for two or more crimes to which it attaches a
lighter penalty.
29. There is quasi-recidivism when any person, who shall commit a felony after having been
convicted by final judgment, before beginning to serve sentence, or while serving the same,
shall be considered as a quasi-recidivist.
30. Habitual delinquent is a person who, within a period of ten years from the date of his release or
last conviction of the crimes of serious or less serious physical injuries, robbery, theft, estafa or
falsification, is guilty of any of the said crimes or oftener.
31. Continued crime or delito continuado exists when there is plurality of acts performed
separately during a period of time; unity of criminal intent and purpose; unity of penal
provision violated.
32. Special complex crime or composite crime is composed of two or more crimes for which the
law fixes one specific penalty. The identification of the original design of the accused is very
important to determine the crime committed. Examples of special complex crime are rape
with homicide, robbery with homicide, qualified carnapping, attempted robbery with
homicide, arson with homicide and kidnapping with homicide.
33. There are two kinds of complex crimes. Compound crime is committed when a single
constitutes two or more grave or less grave felonies. Complex crime proper is committed when
an offense is a necessary means for committing the other. The penalty for the most serious
component thereof shall be applied in its maximum period.
34. The one penalty for one criminal mind rule is based on the absorption system which is one of
the three systems of penalty, under which lesser penalties are absorbed by the greater
penalties.
35. Robbery with homicide or kidnapping cannot absorb carnapping. Torture shall not be
absorbed by other crimes.
36. Any person can defend his person or his rights when there is unlawful aggression, reasonable
necessity of the means employed to prevent or repel it and lack of sufficient provocation on
the part of person defending himself.
37. To justify a crime committed in defense of relatives, there must be unlawful aggression against
a relative, reasonable necessity of the means employed to prevent or repel it and lack of
participation in relatives provocation.
38. To justify a crime committed in defense of a stranger, there must be unlawful aggression
against a stranger, reasonable necessity of the means employed to prevent or repel it and the
person defending be not induced by revenge, resentment or other evil motive.
39. As a result of at least two episodes involving infliction of physical harm, the woman suffers
physical and psychological or emotional distress, she can now invoke the batter woman
syndrome as a defense.
40. The battered woman syndrome is characterized by the so-called cycle of violence which
has three phases; 1. Tension-building phase 2. Acute battering incident 3. The tranquil, loving
or non-violent phase. To be a battered woman, the couple must go through battering cycle
at least twice.
41. To justify a felonious act to avoid greater evil or injury, the evil sought to be avoided actually
exists; the injury feared be greater than that done to avoid it, that there be no other practical
or less harmful means of preventing it.
42. To appreciate the justifying circumstance of performance of duty, the accused must have
acted in the performance of a duty or in the lawful exercise of a right or office and the injury
caused should have been the necessary consequence of due performance of duty or lawful
exercise of right or office.
43. The exempting circumstance are minority, insanity, imbecility, accident, irresistible force,
uncontrollable fear and lawful and insuperable cause.
44. (Insanity) Test of cognition states that the mental condition of the accused is an exempting
circumstance of insanity if there was complete deprivation of intelligence in committing the
criminal act. Test of volition states that the mental condition of the accused is a mitigating
circumstance of mental illness if there is deprivation of freedom.
45. The elements of the exempting circumstance of uncontrollable fear are, the existence of an
uncontrollable fear of an injury, the fear of an injury must be real and imminent and the fear of
an injury is greater than or at least equal to that committed.
46. To appreciate the mitigating circumstance of vindication of grave offense, the victim
committed grave offense, the grave offense was committed against the offender or his
spouse, ascendants, descendants, legitimate, or illegitimate or adopted brothers or sisters and
the offender committed the crime in proximate vindication of such grave offense.
47. To appreciate voluntary surrender as mitigating circumstance, the offender has not actually
been arrested; the offender surrendered himself to a person in authority and the surrender was
voluntary.
48. To appreciate confession as mitigating circumstance, the accused spontaneously confessed
his guilt; the confession of guilt was made in open court; the confession was made before a
competent court trying the case and the confession of guilt was made prior to the
presentation of evidence by the prosecution,
49. Mitigating and aggravating circumstances shall not be considered in the imposition of penalty
if the crime is imprudence or negligence; if the penalty is single and indivisible; if special law
has not adopted the technical nomenclature of the penalties of the RPC.
50. To appreciate nighttime as an aggravating circumstance, it must be shown that the accused
intentionally chose darkness to facilitate the commission of the crime.
51. The presence of ordinary or special aggravating circumstance will require the application of
the prescribed penalty in its maximum period. A special aggravating circumstance is not
subject to offset rule. Examples are complex crime and organized/syndicated crime group.
52. There is treachery when the offender commits any of the crimes against the person, employing
means, methods or forms of execution which tend to insure its execution without risk to himself
arising from the defense which the offended party might take.
53. To warrant a finding of evident premeditation, the prosecution must establish that act
manifestly indicating that the offender has clung to his determination; a sufficient interval of
time between the determination and the execution of the crime to allow him to reflect upon
the consequences of his act.
54. If accused claims intoxication as mitigating circumstance, he must establish that his
intoxication was not habitual or subsequent to the plan to commit the crime and that he took
such quantity of alcoholic beverage, prior to the commission of the crime, as would blur his
reason. If the prosecution claims intoxication as an aggravating circumstance, the
prosecution must be habitual or intentional.
55. No criminal, but only civil liability, shall result from the commission of the crime of theft,
swindling or malicious mischief committed by the following persons; Spouses, ascendants,
descendants or relatives by affinity in the same degree; the widowed spouse with respect to
the property which belonged to the deceased spouse before the same shall have passed into
the possession of another; and brothers and sisters and brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, if
living together.
56. In instigation, the law enforcers act as active co-principals. Instigation leads to the acquittal of
the accused while entrapment does not bar prosecution and conviction.
57. To be a principal by indispensable cooperation, one must participate in the criminal resolution,
a conspiracy or unity in criminal purpose (community of design) and cooperation in the
commission of the offense by performing another act without which it would not have been
accomplished.
58. Accessories are those who, having knowledge of the commission of the crime, and without
having participated therein take part subsequent to its commission in any of the following
manners; By profiting themselves or assisting the offender to profit by the effects of the crime.
By concealing or destroying the body of the crime or the effects or instruments thereof, to
prevent its discovery.
By harboring, concealing, or assisting in the escape of the principal of the crime, provided the
accessory acts with abuse of his public functions.
59. In estafa through falsification of commercial documents, the court should impose the penalty
for the graver offense in the maximum period.
60. Principals and accomplices are criminally liable for light felonies. Accessories are not criminally
liable for light felonies.