Short answer. Yes. The Revised Penal Code punishes anyone who induces a minor to abandon the home of his parents, guardians, or the persons entrusted with his custody. No force is required — persuasion is enough — and the offence protects the family's authority over the child.
What the law says
shall be imposed upon anyone who shall induce a minor to abandon the home of his parents or guardians or the persons entrusted with his custody
Revised Penal Code, Article 271 — Inducing A Minor To Leave Home. Read the full provision →
Inducement, not abduction
This offence sits apart from kidnapping and abduction because no taking is required. The act punished is inducing — persuading, urging, encouraging the minor to leave. The child may walk out entirely on his own feet, may want to go, and may be happier away; none of that answers the charge. What the law protects is the authority of the parents, guardians or custodians over the child, and that authority is invaded by the persuasion itself. Note who is covered on the other side: not only parents and appointed guardians, but any person entrusted with his custody, so a relative or institution lawfully caring for the child is within the protection.
What has to be shown
Three things carry a case: that the person was a minor at the time, that he abandoned the home of those with custody, and that the accused's inducement produced that departure. The causal link is where most complaints fail. Merely sheltering a child who has already left, or giving him food and a place to sleep after he arrived on his own, is not inducement — though it can raise other duties, including reporting the child's whereabouts. Comfort offered to a child fleeing violence stands on very different ground from a person who urged the child to go in the first place, and the circumstances behind the departure always matter.
When a parent is the offender
The article expressly contemplates that the person responsible may be the child's own father or mother, and it lowers the penalty in that case to arresto mayor or a fine, or both. This matters in custody disputes, where one parent takes or draws the child away from the parent or guardian who lawfully holds custody. The reduced penalty reflects the parental tie, but it is not a licence: a parent without custody who induces the child to leave is still within the criminal law, quite apart from the contempt and custody consequences that follow in the civil case.
The penalty figures, and the wider law on children
The main penalty is prisión correccional and a fine not exceeding ₱100,000, with ₱40,000 as the cap in the parent situation. Both amounts are the current ones, set by Republic Act No. 10951 (2017), which revised the peso values and fines throughout the Revised Penal Code; older reproductions print the 1930 figures of ₱700 and ₱300. Bear in mind too that where the inducement was aimed at exploitation, abuse or trafficking, far heavier special laws on child protection and trafficking apply instead of, or alongside, this article. Anyone facing or considering such a complaint should have the facts assessed with counsel, and a missing child reported to the authorities immediately.