Short answer. Yes. Under Article 167 of the Revised Penal Code, forging, importing, or uttering an instrument payable to order — or another document of credit not payable to bearer — is a crime. It covers checks and similar order instruments, and is punished with imprisonment and a fine.
What the law says
Any person who shall forge, import or utter, in connivance with the forgers or importers, any instrument payable to order or other document of credit not payable to bearer
Revised Penal Code, Article 167 — Forging Instruments Payable To Order. Read the full provision →
What the law says
in connivance with the forgers or importers
Revised Penal Code, Article 167 — Forging Instruments Payable To Order. Read the full provision →
What the law says
prisión correccional in its medium and maximum periods
Revised Penal Code, Article 167 — Forging Instruments Payable To Order. Read the full provision →
What Article 167 punishes
Article 167 makes it a crime to deal falsely with order instruments. In its own words, Any person who shall forge, import or utter, in connivance with the forgers or importers, any instrument payable to order or other document of credit not payable to bearer is penalized. A check made payable to a named person "or order" is the classic example, but the article also reaches promissory notes and other credit documents that are not payable to bearer. Three acts are covered: forging such an instrument, importing forged ones, and uttering — that is, passing or using — them.
'Uttering' and the connivance element
A person need not be the one who physically forged the instrument to be liable. Article 167 punishes anyone who imports or utters a forged order instrument in connivance with the forgers or importers. "Uttering" means putting the false instrument into circulation — for instance, presenting a forged check for payment or passing it to another as genuine. The phrase ties the importer or utterer to those who made the fake, which is why simply and innocently receiving a forged check, without any such link, is a different situation from the crime this article describes.
The penalty
The penalty has two parts. The article imposes prisión correccional in its medium and maximum periods — a term of imprisonment — together with a fine. The peso figure printed in the current text reflects Republic Act No. 10951 (2017), which revised the fines and property values throughout the Revised Penal Code; older copies of the Code still show the much smaller 1930 amounts. Because these figures were rewritten, anyone checking the exact fine should be sure they are reading the RA 10951 version rather than a decades-old reproduction that understates it.
What the article does not cover
Article 167 is aimed at instruments payable to order and documents of credit not payable to bearer; forging instruments payable to bearer, or counterfeiting money and securities, are dealt with by other provisions of the Code. It also does not require that anyone actually lose money before the crime is complete — the wrongdoing lies in the forging, importing or uttering itself. Whether a particular paper is an "instrument payable to order" depends on how it is drawn, so the classification of the document is often the first real question in a case under this article.