Short answer. Article 328 treats four kinds of damage as special malicious mischief: damage meant to obstruct public functions, damage using poison or corrosive substances, spreading infection among cattle, and damage to the National Museum, National Library, an archive, registry, waterworks, road, promenade, or other property the public uses in common. The penalty scales with the value destroyed.
What the law says
Any person who shall cause damage to obstruct the performance of public functions, or using any poisonous or corrosive substance; or spreading any infection or contagion among cattle; or who causes damage to the property of the National Museum or National Library, or to any archive or registry, waterworks, road, promenade, or any other thing used in common by the public, shall be punished
Revised Penal Code, Article 328 — Special Cases Of Malicious Mischief. Read the full provision →
What the law says
By prisión correccional in its minimum and medium periods, if the value of the damage caused exceeds Two hundred thousand pesos (₱200,000)
Revised Penal Code, Article 328 — Special Cases Of Malicious Mischief. Read the full provision →
The four categories of damage covered
Article 328 groups together several distinct situations under one heading. It covers damage caused to obstruct the performance of public functions; damage inflicted using any poisonous or corrosive substance; the act of spreading any infection or contagion among cattle; and damage to the property of the National Museum or National Library, or to any archive or registry, waterworks, road, promenade, or any other thing used in common by the public. These are treated as special cases precisely because ordinary malicious mischief does not, by itself, single out this combination of public-interest targets and methods.
The penalty is graduated by the value of the damage
Once conduct falls under Article 328, the penalty is not fixed — it depends on how much damage was actually caused. The heavier penalty applies to the highest damage bracket, a middle penalty to a middle bracket, and the lightest penalty where the damage falls below the lowest threshold. This graduated structure means the same act of causing damage to, say, a public waterworks can carry very different consequences depending on the peso value actually destroyed.
The amounts in force today were revised by RA 10951
The specific peso thresholds in Article 328 are not the ones originally written into the 1930 Code. Republic Act No. 10951, enacted in 2017, revised the property values and fines used throughout the Revised Penal Code, including the brackets in this article. Older reproductions of the Code in circulation may still show the pre-2017 figures, so anyone checking the current thresholds should confirm they are looking at the amounts as revised by RA 10951, not the original amounts.
What sets these apart from ordinary malicious mischief
The common thread running through Article 328's four categories is that the damage strikes at something the public relies on collectively — a public function, animal health on a community scale, or an institution or facility used in common — rather than an individual's private property alone. That public dimension is what moves the conduct out of the ordinary malicious mischief provisions and into this specific article, with its own graduated penalty scheme tied to the value destroyed.