He caused an explosion that put people at risk — is the penalty higher because lives were endangered?

One offence, two penalties, and the fact that divides them

The article closes by providing that the offender shall be punished by reclusion temporal if the commission has endangered the safety of any person; otherwise, the penalty of prision mayor shall be imposed. The same destructive act therefore falls into one of two brackets depending on a single circumstance. That circumstance is not injury and not death — it is danger to the safety of a person. So the enquiry is into the risk the act created at the time, which is why an explosion that harmed nobody may still attract the heavier treatment.

The means the article lists, and the clause that opens the list

Article 324 enumerates destruction by explosion, discharge of electric current, inundation, the sinking or stranding of a vessel, damaging a vessel's engine, taking up railway rails, maliciously changing railway signals, and destroying telegraph wires and posts or those of any other system. It then adds a catch-all: destruction caused by any other agency or means as effective as those above enumerated. So the list is illustrative of a level of destructive power rather than exhaustive, and a means not named can fall within it if it is comparably effective.

Endangerment has to be established like anything else

Because the whole difference between the two penalties rests on it, whether the safety of any person was endangered becomes a contested question of fact in most cases of this kind. It is proved from the circumstances — who was present or expected to be, the proximity of occupied structures, the time of day, the force and reach of the blast. A prosecution asserting it must establish it; a defence contesting it is disputing a fact rather than a characterisation. Neither side should treat the point as self-evident from the nature of an explosion.

What matters most in the immediate aftermath

The scene, and how quickly it is documented. Photographs, the extent and location of the damage, who was in the vicinity, and any expert examination of cause are all far more informative in the first days than later. If you have been charged, do not give an account of the cause before speaking to a lawyer, since the difference between an intentional act and one arising from negligence is decided under an entirely different provision. If you were affected by it, your own losses are a separate matter to raise at the same time.

Related provisions

• Revised Penal Code, Article 324 — Crimes Involving Destruction
• Revised Penal Code, Article 365 — Imprudence And Negligence