Short answer. Yes, it can. The Revised Penal Code lists, as a mitigating circumstance, having acted upon an impulse so powerful as naturally to have produced passion or obfuscation. A recognized mitigating circumstance does not erase guilt, but it can lower the penalty the court imposes.
What the law says
That of having acted upon an impulse so powerful as naturally to have produced passion or obfuscation.
Revised Penal Code, Article 13 — Mitigating Circumstances. Read the full provision →
Passion or obfuscation as mitigation
Article 13 enumerates the mitigating circumstances, and paragraph 6 is the one the question asks about: that of having acted upon an impulse so powerful as naturally to have produced passion or obfuscation. The idea is that a person who acts while his reason is genuinely overpowered by strong emotion is somewhat less blameworthy than one who acts in cold blood. It does not excuse the crime — the act remains a crime — but it is treated as a factor that reduces moral responsibility, and therefore the penalty. The impulse must be powerful enough to have naturally clouded the offender's self-control.
It is not a licence for any anger
Not every flash of temper qualifies. The emotion must arise from a lawful or at least understandable cause and must be so strong as naturally to produce loss of reason and self-control, not a trivial irritation. It must also be close in time to the act; where enough time has passed for the offender to cool off and reflect, the law no longer regards him as acting under an overpowering impulse. And an emotion the offender himself provoked, or that springs from a wrongful purpose, will not serve. The circumstance rewards genuine, sudden loss of composure, not planned violence dressed up as passion.
What mitigation actually does
A mitigating circumstance does not acquit anyone. Its effect is on the penalty: within the rules on how penalties are graduated, the presence of mitigating circumstances (without any aggravating ones to offset them) pulls the punishment toward its lower range. Article 13 lists several such circumstances besides passion — among them sufficient provocation by the offended party, lack of intent to commit so grave a wrong, voluntary surrender, and voluntary confession of guilt before the prosecution presents its evidence. More than one may apply at once, and their combined weight is considered when the court fixes the sentence.
One part of this article no longer states current law
A caution about the same article. Paragraph 2 treats an offender under eighteen or over seventy as a mitigating circumstance, and points to an old minority procedure that no longer exists. On minority, the governing rule today is Republic Act No. 9344 (2006), as amended by Republic Act No. 10630 (2013): a child fifteen or under at the time of the offense is exempt from criminal liability, and a child above fifteen but below eighteen is exempt unless he acted with discernment, with intervention or diversion in place of prosecution. So do not rely on the old age thresholds as written. Whether passion or obfuscation truly applies is fact-specific and deserves careful review.