Short answer. Yes. Article 273 of the Revised Penal Code specifically criminalizes this practice. Using a parent's or guardian's debt as justification to retain a minor in forced service is punishable by imprisonment, regardless of whether the debt is real or the parties agreed to the arrangement.
What the law says
under the pretext of reimbursing himself of a debt incurred by an ascendant, guardian or person entrusted with the custody of a minor, shall, against the latter's will, retain him in his service
Revised Penal Code, Article 273 — Exploitation Of Child Labor. Read the full provision →
What Article 273 says
Article 273 of the Revised Penal Code is titled Exploitation of Child Labor and targets a very specific abuse pattern: using a family debt as a pretext to hold a minor in involuntary service. The law punishes anyone who, claiming to recover money owed by a minor's ascendant, guardian, or custodian, retains that minor in service against the child's will. The penalty is prisión correccional in its minimum and medium periods — imprisonment ranging from six months and one day to four years and two months — plus a fine.
Why the pretext does not matter
The word pretext in the article is significant. The law does not ask whether the parent or guardian actually owed a debt, or whether the child's labor was genuinely intended to settle it. The word signals that the debt justification is itself treated as a cover for what is really happening: compelling a child to work against their will. A real debt owed by a parent does not entitle anyone to collect payment through a child's body and labor. The debt, real or fabricated, cannot lawfully be repaid this way.
The 'against the latter's will' element
The article requires that the minor be retained against the latter's will — meaning the child's will, not the parent's. This element recognizes that a parent or guardian cannot consent on behalf of a child to arrangements that deprive the child of freedom of movement and choice. Even if the parent agreed to the arrangement, even if the household believed the debt was legitimate, the child's own lack of consent to remaining in service is the decisive element. A child who wants to leave and is prevented from doing so satisfies this element.
Context: domestic workers and household arrangements
This article was written with a specific social reality in mind — the practice of taking in a poor family's child as a domestic worker, ostensibly to work off a debt, and then holding the child there indefinitely. It remains relevant today wherever children are placed in households and prevented from leaving under financial justifications. Domestic workers in the Philippines are separately protected by law, and children in household service have specific protections. If a child in your community is being held in this way, this article establishes that the practice is not merely exploitative — it is a criminal offense.