Short answer. Considerably. The article moves from the ordinary penalty for abandoning a child to a much heavier one where the child's life was endangered, and to a heavier one still where death resulted. It also allows a graver offence to be charged instead where the facts support one.
What the law says
When the death of the minor shall result from such abandonment, the culprit shall be punished by prisión correccional in its medium and maximum periods; but if the life of the minor shall have been in danger only, the penalty shall be prisión correccional in its minimum and medium periods.
Revised Penal Code, Article 276 — Abandoning A Minor. Read the full provision →
What the law says
The provisions contained in the two (2) preceding paragraphs shall not prevent the imposition of the penalty provided for the act committed, when the same shall constitute a more serious offense.
Revised Penal Code, Article 276 — Abandoning A Minor. Read the full provision →
The base offence, before any consequence follows
Art. 276 punishes abandoning a child under seven years of age the custody of which is incumbent upon him. Two things are built into that. The child must be within the age the article names, and the person accused must have been someone on whom custody rested — a parent, or another whose duty of care the law or an arrangement had fixed. A stranger who walks past a child in difficulty is not within this provision, whatever else may be said of it. The offence is complete on the abandonment; the paragraphs that follow deal with what came of it.
Two graded outcomes, and both are steep
The article then provides: when the death of the minor shall result from such abandonment, the culprit shall be punished by prisión correccional in its medium and maximum periods; but if the life of the minor shall have been in danger only, the penalty shall be prisión correccional in its minimum and medium periods. Notice what the lesser of the two requires. The child need not have been hurt at all; it is enough that his life was placed in danger. So the gap between a child found unharmed and a child found in peril is not a gap between an offence and none, but between two levels of the same one.
The article does not cap what may be charged
A further paragraph makes that explicit: the provisions contained in the two (2) preceding paragraphs shall not prevent the imposition of the penalty provided for the act committed, when the same shall constitute a more serious offense. Where the facts amount to a graver crime under another article, this one does not stand in the way of charging it. Beyond the Code, special legislation on child protection may also apply to the same conduct, with consequences of its own. Anyone assessing exposure here should not assume this article marks the ceiling.
What the case is likely to be fought on
Three questions do most of the work: whether custody was in fact incumbent on the accused at the moment in question, the child's age, and whether the harm or the danger followed from the abandonment rather than from something else that intervened. Records establishing the age and the custodial arrangement, medical findings, and an accurate account of who was where and when are the material. This is among the gravest matters the Code deals with and nothing about its outcome can be predicted; anyone facing it should get counsel before giving any account.
Related provisions
- Revised Penal Code, Article 276 — Abandoning A Minor
- Revised Penal Code, Article 277 — Abandonment Of Minor By Custodian