Short answer. Possibly. Article 2220 provides that willful injury to property may be a legal ground for awarding moral damages if the court should find that, under the circumstances, such damages are justly due. Deliberateness is what brings the article into play; the award still rests on the court's judgment.
What the law says
Willful injury to property may be a legal ground for awarding moral damages if the court should find that, under the circumstances, such damages are justly due.
Civil Code, Article 2220 — Moral Damages for Breach of Contract in Bad Faith. Read the full provision →
“Willful” is the hinge
The article's property limb turns on one word. Willful injury to property is not damage caused by carelessness, by a poor decision or by an accident during work; it is damage somebody meant to do. That is why the same smashed gate produces very different claims depending on whether a delivery van reversed into it or a neighbour took a hammer to it. Establishing that the act was deliberate is therefore the first task, and it is a factual one, decided by what was done and how it was done rather than by what the person now says he intended.
Moral damages answer the effect on you, not the value of the thing
The gate itself is compensated under Article 2199 as pecuniary loss duly proved, with quotations and receipts. Moral damages are about something else. Article 2217 describes them in terms of mental anguish, fright, serious anxiety, wounded feelings, moral shock and social humiliation, recoverable where they are the proximate result of the wrongful act. The two claims are therefore proved with different material, and running them together as a single grievance tends to weaken both rather than reinforcing either.
“Justly due” keeps it discretionary
Moral damages may be a ground for an award if the court should find that, under the circumstances, such damages are justly due. Circumstances is a wide word, and it takes in the relationship between the parties, what was destroyed and what the destruction was meant to achieve. Article 2218 belongs here as well, since in adjudicating moral damages the sentimental value of property, real or personal, may be considered. Where the object was chosen precisely because it mattered to you, that is worth saying plainly rather than leaving it to be inferred.
Deliberateness is shown by what surrounded the act
Preserve the scene and photograph it before repairing anything. Secure CCTV from your own premises and from neighbours quickly, because most systems overwrite within weeks. Keep messages, threats and any record of the quarrel that preceded it, together with barangay records of earlier incidents between you. Then get repair quotations for the compensatory side. Where the conduct was serious enough, exemplary damages under Article 2229, imposed by way of example or correction for the public good, may also come into the picture.
Cases citing this provision
These Supreme Court decisions cite the provision above. We list them so you can read them yourself; the summaries of what each decided are not ours to give.
- Mariano Mendoza and Elvira Lim vs. Spouses Leonora J. Gomez and Gabriel V. Gomez, G.R. No. 160110, June 18, 2014 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- People of the Philippines vs. Salvador Tulagan, G.R. No. 227363, March 12, 2019 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- Rodolfo N. Regala vs. Federico P. Carin, G.R. No. 188715, April 6, 2011 — read the decision on LawPhil →
- RCPI vs. Alfonso Verchez, et al, G.R. No. 164349, January 31, 2006 — read the decision on LawPhil →
Related provisions
- Civil Code, Article 2217 — Moral Damages Defined
- Civil Code, Article 2218 — Sentimental Value Considered