Short answer. Yes. Rule 124, Section 11 expressly authorises the Court of Appeals to increase or reduce the penalty imposed by the trial court when it decides an appeal. By appealing, you place the whole judgment before the appellate court, which may affirm, reverse or modify it — in either direction.
What the law says
The Court of Appeals may reverse, affirm or modify the judgment and increase or reduce the penalty imposed by the trial court, remand the case to the Regional Trial Court for new trial or retrial, or dismiss the case.
Rule 124, Section 11 — Scope of judgment. Read the full provision →
What the rule says
The section is short and unambiguous: The Court of Appeals may reverse, affirm or modify the judgment and increase or reduce the penalty imposed by the trial court, remand the case to the Regional Trial Court for new trial or retrial, or dismiss the case. The power to increase sits in the same sentence as the power to reduce — the appellate court is not limited to leaving the sentence alone or lowering it. An appeal is a review of the judgment, not a one-way ratchet in the accused's favour.
Why the penalty can go up
Because the section lets the court modify the judgment, what the judgment contains is open to correction — including the penalty it imposed. If the trial court handed down a penalty lower than the one that fits the offence proved, the Court of Appeals may correct it upward, and nothing in the section conditions that power on who raised the point. The power is stated as the court's own, exercised in disposing of the appeal before it. An appellant who assigns errors on one issue should expect the appellate court to read the whole judgment, not just the paragraph complained of.
The other outcomes the section allows
An increased penalty is only one of the dispositions on the menu. The court may remand the case to the Regional Trial Court for new trial or retrial, which restarts the factual battle rather than ending it, or it may dismiss the case, which is the outcome every appellant hopes for. Between those poles sit affirmance — the judgment stands as written — and modification, which can touch the conviction, the penalty or both. Which of these an appeal produces depends on the errors assigned and what the record actually supports, not on what the appellant asks for.
Weigh the risk before appealing
An appeal is therefore a genuine gamble where the trial court's penalty was arguably too low: review can surface the error and correct it against you. Before deciding, have counsel assess the realistic range of penalties for the offence charged, how the trial court arrived at its sentence, and whether the grounds for appeal are strong enough to justify reopening the whole judgment. For some convicted persons the sound course is to appeal; for others, it is to accept the judgment rather than risk a heavier one. That judgement call is exactly what a consultation with counsel is for.