Short answer. Two accessory penalties remain. Under Article 40, a death penalty not carried out because of commutation or pardon still carries perpetual absolute disqualification and civil interdiction for thirty years from the date of sentence, unless the pardon expressly remits them. Note that Republic Act No. 9346 (2006) has since abolished the death penalty itself.
What the law says
The death penalty, when it is not executed by reason of commutation or pardon shall carry with it that of perpetual absolute disqualification and that of civil interdiction during thirty years following the date of sentence, unless such accessory penalties have been expressly remitted in the pardon.
Revised Penal Code, Article 40 — Death: Its Accessory Penalties. Read the full provision →
The two penalties that survive
Article 40 attaches two accessory penalties to a death sentence that is not executed. It says the death penalty, when it is not executed by reason of commutation or pardon shall carry with it that of perpetual absolute disqualification and that of civil interdiction during thirty years following the date of sentence. Perpetual absolute disqualification strips the offender of public office and employment, of the right to vote and be voted for, and of any pension from the government. Civil interdiction removes his authority to manage his own property and to dispose of it by an act between living persons, and deprives him of parental and marital authority, during its term.
Read this article subject to the abolition of the death penalty
The most important thing to understand today is that the death penalty referred to in Article 40 can no longer be imposed. Republic Act No. 9346 (2006) prohibits the imposition of the death penalty in the Philippines. In its place the law imposes reclusion perpetua where the Revised Penal Code's system of penalties is used, or life imprisonment where it is not. So while the article still describes the accessory penalties of a commuted death sentence, no court may hand down a death sentence in the first place. The provision must be read against that prohibition rather than as a live description of a currently available penalty.
When the accessory penalties can be lifted
The article builds in one escape. The accessory penalties follow the sentence unless such accessory penalties have been expressly remitted in the pardon. In other words, a pardon that stays silent leaves perpetual absolute disqualification and civil interdiction in force; only a pardon that specifically removes them frees the offender from them. This matters because a grant of clemency is not automatically a clean slate. Unless the instrument granting it says so in clear terms, the disqualification and the interdiction continue to run for the period the law fixes, independent of the fact that the principal penalty was never carried out.
How accessory penalties fit the wider scheme
Accessory penalties are not separately pronounced by the judge; they are consequences the law fastens automatically onto the principal penalty. That is why a defendant, or a family member trying to understand a sentence, can be caught off guard: the record may speak only of the principal penalty while these disqualifications operate by force of law. Because the thirty-year clock for civil interdiction runs following the date of sentence, the timing is fixed by the sentence, not by later events. Anyone assessing the full effect of a conviction should therefore look past the principal penalty to the accessory penalties the Code silently imposes.