Short answer. No. The provision lists principals, accomplices and accessories as liable for grave and less grave felonies, but for light felonies it names only principals and accomplices. Accessory liability does not attach where the offence committed is a light felony, whatever was done afterwards.
What the law says
The following are criminally liable for grave and less grave felonies: 1. Principals. 2. Accomplices. 3. Accessories.
Revised Penal Code, Article 16 — Who Are Criminally Liable. Read the full provision →
What the law says
The following are criminally liable for light felonies: 1. Principals. 2. Accomplices.
Revised Penal Code, Article 16 — Who Are Criminally Liable. Read the full provision →
Two lists, and the shorter one is the point
Art. 16 sets out who answers for a felony twice over. The following are criminally liable for grave and less grave felonies: 1. Principals. 2. Accomplices. 3. Accessories. Then, for the lighter class: The following are criminally liable for light felonies: 1. Principals. 2. Accomplices. The omission is deliberate, not an oversight in the drafting. Where the felony committed is a light one, the third category simply has no application, and conduct after the fact that would make a person an accessory to a serious crime does not make him one here.
Whether a felony is light is decided by the penalty
The classification is not about how serious the incident felt to those involved. The Code sorts felonies by the penalty the law attaches to them, with light felonies being those carrying the lightest penalty of imprisonment or a small fine. The ceiling for that fine, along with many other amounts in the Code, was revised by later legislation, so the figures printed in older copies of the text are not the current ones. What settles the classification in a real case is the offence actually charged and the penalty its own article prescribes, not the description in the complaint.
What still can attach, and what does not
Two things follow from the shorter list. A person who took part in the light felony itself, as principal or as accomplice, is still within the article; it is only the after-the-fact category that drops away. And the conduct that would have made someone an accessory — concealing the offender, disposing of the effects of the crime — is not converted into innocence by this provision. Some such conduct is a separate offence in its own right under other articles. What the provision decides is a narrower thing: that it cannot be charged as accessory liability for this felony.
The first thing to check in your own situation
Look at which offence is actually named in the complaint or information and at the penalty that offence carries, because the whole question follows from that and from nothing else. Light felonies are also punished only when consummated, apart from those against persons or property, which narrows things further. If you have been named in a complaint on the footing that you helped somebody after the event, bring the complaint itself to a lawyer, together with the dates — how the offence is classified may dispose of that theory entirely.
Related provisions
- Revised Penal Code, Article 16 — Who Are Criminally Liable
- Revised Penal Code, Article 17 — Who Counts As Principal