Short answer. Yes, it can. Article 15 lists the offender's degree of instruction and education as one of three alternative circumstances, along with relationship and intoxication. Alternative circumstances are weighed as aggravating or mitigating depending on the crime's nature and effects and the other conditions surrounding its commission, not treated as fixed in one direction.
What the law says
Alternative circumstances are those which must be taken into consideration as aggravating or mitigating according to the nature and effects of the crime and the other conditions attending its commission.
Revised Penal Code, Article 15 — Alternative Circumstances: Relationship, Intoxication And Education. Read the full provision →
What the law says
They are the relationship, intoxication and the degree of instruction and education of the offender.
Revised Penal Code, Article 15 — Alternative Circumstances: Relationship, Intoxication And Education. Read the full provision →
What alternative circumstances are
Article 15 opens by defining what it means for a circumstance to be 'alternative.' Alternative circumstances are those which must be taken into consideration as aggravating or mitigating according to the nature and effects of the crime and the other conditions attending its commission. Unlike a circumstance that is always aggravating or always mitigating, an alternative circumstance can point in either direction, and which direction it points in depends on the specifics of the crime and how it was committed, not on a fixed rule attached to the circumstance itself.
Education as one of the three alternative circumstances
The article names three alternative circumstances: the relationship, intoxication and the degree of instruction and education of the offender. So education level sits alongside relationship between the offender and the victim, and the offender's state of intoxication, as one of only three factors the Revised Penal Code singles out as capable of cutting either way — toward a heavier or a lighter penalty — depending on the case.
How relationship and intoxication illustrate the swing
The article goes on to spell out, in some detail, how relationship and intoxication are actually applied. Relationship is considered when the offended party is the offender's spouse, ascendant, descendant, a legitimate, natural, or adopted brother or sister, or a relative by affinity within the same degrees. Intoxication is treated as mitigating when the offender committed the felony while intoxicated and the intoxication was neither habitual nor part of a plan to commit the crime, but as aggravating when the intoxication was habitual or intentional.
What this means for education specifically
For education specifically, Article 15 places it among the alternative circumstances without spelling out separate detailed conditions the way it does for relationship and intoxication. What that means is that the general concept the article opens with governs: an offender's degree of instruction and education is weighed as aggravating or mitigating according to the nature and effects of the particular crime and the conditions surrounding how it was committed, rather than automatically pushing the penalty in one fixed direction.
Related provisions
- Revised Penal Code, Article 15 — Alternative Circumstances: Relationship, Intoxication And Education