Short answer. Article 119 punishes anyone who, during a war in which the Philippine Government is not involved, violates a regulation issued by competent authority to enforce neutrality. The penalty is prisión correccional. The crime protects the country's neutral stance by requiring compliance with the rules laid down to maintain it.
What the law says
anyone who, on the occasion of a war in which the Government is not involved, violates any regulation issued by competent authority for the purpose of enforcing neutrality.
Revised Penal Code, Article 119 — Violation Of Neutrality. Read the full provision →
The offense
When a war breaks out between other nations and the Philippines has chosen to stay out of it, the government may issue rules to keep the country genuinely neutral. Article 119 backs those rules with criminal liability, punishing anyone who, on the occasion of a war in which the Government is not involved, violates any regulation issued by competent authority for the purpose of enforcing neutrality. The crime is committed by breaching such a neutrality regulation while the foreign war is ongoing. The penalty fixed for it is prisión correccional, a term of imprisonment reflecting the seriousness of undermining the nation's neutral position.
The elements
Two conditions frame the offense. First, there must be a war in which the Philippine Government is not involved; the article operates precisely when the country is a neutral bystander to a conflict between others. Second, there must be a regulation issued by competent authority for the purpose of enforcing that neutrality, and the accused must have violated it. The crime therefore depends on the existence of both the foreign war and a duly issued neutrality rule, and on the accused breaching that rule while the situation the rule addresses persists.
Why neutrality is protected by the criminal law
A declared or chosen neutrality is only as good as a country's ability to enforce it. If private individuals could freely flout the rules meant to keep the nation out of another's war, their acts could draw the country into the conflict or expose it to reprisals, defeating the very policy of staying neutral. By making violation of neutrality regulations a crime, Article 119 gives those regulations teeth, deterring conduct that could compromise the country's neutral standing and the safety that neutrality is intended to preserve.
How it works in practice
Because the article punishes the violation of a regulation issued by competent authority, the specific prohibited conduct is defined not in the Code itself but in the neutrality rules the government issues for the particular situation. The article supplies the penalty and the framework; the regulations supply the detailed dos and don'ts for the occasion. In practice, then, whether a person has committed this crime turns on what the applicable neutrality regulation required and whether he breached it during a war in which the Philippines was not a participant.