Short answer. Yes. Article 313 of the Revised Penal Code punishes any person who alters the boundary marks or monuments of towns, provinces or estates, or any other marks intended to designate those boundaries. The penalty is light, but the criminal case is separate from the property dispute underneath it.
What the law says
Any person who shall alter the boundary marks or monuments of towns, provinces, or estates, or any other marks intended to designate the boundaries of the same
Revised Penal Code, Article 313 — Altering Boundaries Or Landmarks. Read the full provision →
What the article actually forbids
The act punished is altering a boundary mark. That is broader than simply pulling one out. Moving a concrete monument a metre inward, defacing it so the markings can no longer be read, burying it, or replacing it with one of your own all interfere with what the marker is there to do. The article covers markers of towns, provinces and estates, and then adds a catch-all for any other marks intended to designate the boundaries of the same. So the survey monument between two residential lots is within it. What matters is the function of the object — that it was placed to show where one property ends and the next begins.
Why the law protects a piece of concrete
A boundary monument is evidence. Titles describe land by technical descriptions tied to markers on the ground, and once those markers move, every later survey and every sale inherits the error. The harm this article guards against is therefore not the loss of a cheap post but the corruption of the record that everyone in the area relies on. That is also why the offence stands on its own. It does not require that anyone actually gained land, or that a sale went through, or that a neighbour lost anything measurable yet. The interference with the marker is the wrong.
The penalty, and its 2017 update
The punishment is arresto menor, a fine that may not exceed twenty thousand pesos, or both. That fine ceiling comes from Republic Act No. 10951 (2017), which revised fines and property values across the Revised Penal Code; older reproductions still print the much smaller original figure and should not be relied on. Because the penalty is at the lighter end of the Code, this is usually not the case that decides who owns the land. It punishes the interference. Whether a fence or a wall must come down, and where the true line runs, are separate civil questions that a criminal court is not there to settle.
What to do about a moved marker
Before anything else, preserve proof of the original position: old survey plans, the approved subdivision plan, photographs, and the recollection of long-time neighbours. A relocation survey by a licensed geodetic engineer is what usually settles where the monument belonged, and its report becomes the backbone of any case you bring. Proving who moved it is harder than proving that it moved, and a criminal complaint needs both. Many of these disputes end in a relocation survey and a written agreement rather than a conviction. No outcome can be promised, so take advice on whether a criminal complaint, a civil action to quiet title, or barangay proceedings serve you best.