Short answer. Yes. Article 216 of the Revised Penal Code punishes a public officer who, directly or indirectly, becomes interested in any contract or business in which it is his official duty to intervene. The offence lies in holding the interest itself — no loss to the government and no proof of bribery is required.
What the law says
shall be imposed upon a public officer who directly or indirectly, shall become interested in any contract or business in which it is his official duty to intervene
Revised Penal Code, Article 216 — Prohibited Interest Of Public Officer. Read the full provision →
Two elements, and no need to prove harm
The article turns on two things only. The officer must have an official duty to intervene in the contract or business — to recommend it, evaluate it, approve it, award it, audit it or sign it. And he must have become interested in it, directly or indirectly. The words "or indirectly" do the heavy lifting: routing the interest through a spouse, a relative, a nominee, or a company in which the officer holds shares does not take the arrangement outside the article. Nothing in the text requires that the government lost money, that the price was inflated, or that the officer was paid anything. The conflict itself is the wrong.
Who else the article binds
Article 216 is not confined to officers on a government payroll. Its second sentence extends it to experts, arbitrators and private accountants who take part in a contract or transaction connected with an estate or property they have acted on in appraisal, distribution or adjudication. It reaches guardians and executors too, as regards the property of their wards or of the estate. So a court-appointed appraiser who ends up buying the property he valued, or an executor who acquires an asset of the estate he administers, is within the same prohibition, even though neither holds public office in the ordinary sense.
The penalty and the current peso figures
The penalty is arresto mayor in its medium period to prisión correccional in its minimum period, or a fine, or both. The fine range printed in the current text — forty thousand to two hundred thousand pesos — was set by Republic Act No. 10951 (2017), which revised fines and property values throughout the Revised Penal Code. Older reproductions of the Code still show the 1930 amounts, so any smaller figure you find elsewhere is likely the superseded version. Beyond the criminal penalty, conduct of this kind is usually also an administrative offence and is separately covered by the anti-graft legislation and the ethical standards law for public officials.
If you are the officer, or the one reporting it
The safe course for an officer who discovers an interest is to disclose it in writing and inhibit from every stage of the transaction before acting, not after a complaint arrives — a paper trail created afterwards persuades no one. For someone reporting, what matters is documentary: the award or approval papers showing the officer's participation, and the registry, corporate or ownership records showing the interest. Family relationships alone rarely settle anything without a document connecting the officer's function to the contract. These matters can run criminally and administratively at once, and no outcome can be promised in advance; take advice on the actual documents.