Short answer. They are three different things a convicted offender may be made to do. Restitution returns the very thing taken; reparation pays for damage to it when return is impossible; indemnification covers the further losses the crime caused. Article 104 of the Revised Penal Code lists all three.
What the law says
The civil liability established in articles 100, 101, 102, and 103, of this Code includes: 1. Restitution; 2. Reparation of the damage caused; 3. Indemnification for consequential damages.
Revised Penal Code, Article 104 — What Civil Liability Includes. Read the full provision →
What the law says
Every person criminally liable for a felony is also civilly liable.
Revised Penal Code, Article 100 — Criminal Liability Means Civil Liability. Read the full provision →
Why a criminal case carries a money side at all
Article 100 of the Revised Penal Code states the starting point plainly: every person criminally liable for a felony is also civilly liable. A conviction therefore does two jobs — it punishes the offender, and it settles what he owes the person harmed. Article 104 then breaks that civil liability into its parts. The three items are not alternatives you choose between. They are layers, and a single case can produce all three, one of them, or none, depending on what the crime actually did to the victim. Understanding which layer applies is what tells you whether you are asking for a thing back or for money, and how much.
Restitution: getting the actual thing back
Restitution is the return of the very property involved in the offence — the stolen phone, the taken vehicle, the misappropriated sum. It is the first remedy because it is the most complete: it puts the injured party back where he was rather than approximating it in cash. Restitution is preferred wherever the thing still exists and can be recovered, and it can reach property even in the hands of someone who later acquired it, subject to that person's own remedies against whoever passed it on. Where the item has been consumed, destroyed or genuinely cannot be traced, restitution is no longer possible and the second layer comes into play.
Reparation and indemnification: two different kinds of money
Reparation of the damage caused is money standing in for the thing itself — its value when it cannot be returned, or the cost of the harm done to it when it is returned damaged. Indemnification for consequential damages is broader and looks past the object to the knock-on losses the offence produced: earnings lost while unable to work, medical expenses, and other consequences flowing from the crime. The distinction matters in practice because they are proved differently. Reparation turns on the value or condition of a specific thing; indemnification requires you to show a causal link between the felony and each loss claimed.
What this list does not tell you
Article 104 identifies the categories; it does not fix amounts, and no figure can be read out of it. Nor does it decide who pays — other provisions deal with persons who are civilly liable although not criminally so, and with employers and others answerable in certain situations. An acquittal does not always extinguish the civil side either, because the standard of proof differs. Practically, keep receipts, valuations, medical bills and proof of lost income from the outset; each of the three layers has to be substantiated with evidence rather than asserted, and unsupported claims are commonly reduced or refused.
Related provisions
- Revised Penal Code, Article 104 — What Civil Liability Includes
- Revised Penal Code, Article 100 — Criminal Liability Means Civil Liability