Short answer. Yes. Under Article 163 of the Revised Penal Code, any person who makes, imports, or utters false coins, in connivance with counterfeiters or importers, is criminally liable — whether the fake coins imitate Philippine coinage or the currency of a foreign country. The penalty is imprisonment and a fine.
What the law says
Any person who make, imports, or utters false coins, in connivance with counterfeiters, or importers
Revised Penal Code, Article 163 — Making Or Uttering False Coins. Read the full provision →
What the law says
Prisión correccional in its minimum and medium periods
Revised Penal Code, Article 163 — Making Or Uttering False Coins. Read the full provision →
What the law says
Prisión correccional in its minimum period
Revised Penal Code, Article 163 — Making Or Uttering False Coins. Read the full provision →
The three punishable acts
Article 163 covers counterfeit coins from creation to circulation. It penalizes Any person who make, imports, or utters false coins, in connivance with counterfeiters, or importers. Three acts are reached: making false coins, importing them, and uttering — that is, passing or putting into circulation — them. The phrase "in connivance with counterfeiters, or importers" ties the importer or utterer to those behind the fakes. So a person who knowingly works with counterfeiters to spend or spread false coins is within the article, not only the one who physically struck them.
Philippine coins versus foreign currency
The article sets two brackets depending on what was faked. If the counterfeited coins are Philippine coinage, the penalty is Prisión correccional in its minimum and medium periods and a fine. If the counterfeited coin is the currency of a foreign country, the penalty is Prisión correccional in its minimum period and a smaller fine. Both are punished — faking foreign coins is still a crime here — but Philippine coinage is protected more strongly. The distinction turns on whose money the fake imitates, not on where the offender happened to act.
The fines were revised in 2017
The peso figures now printed in Article 163 come from Republic Act No. 10951 (2017), which updated the fines throughout the Revised Penal Code. Under the current text, the fine for counterfeiting Philippine coins does not exceed Four hundred thousand pesos, and for foreign currency it does not exceed Two hundred thousand pesos. Older copies of the Code still show the far smaller 1930 amounts, so anyone quoting a figure should be sure they are reading the RA 10951 version. The imprisonment penalties, by contrast, are the graduated prisión correccional terms described above.
What the article does not require
Article 163 does not require that anyone actually be cheated before the crime is complete; making, importing or knowingly uttering false coins is punishable in itself, because the wrong is the threat to the currency. It also does not cover the counterfeiting of paper money and other instruments, which fall under separate provisions of the Code. And it speaks of coins that imitate real coinage — genuine coins that are merely defaced or mutilated are treated under different articles. Identifying what exactly was faked, and the offender's link to the counterfeiters, frames any case under this provision.