Short answer. A fine of P1,000 to P10,000, or imprisonment of three months to three years, or both, at the court's discretion. RA 7610 Section 16 sets this for violating the Article's rules on employing children, and it adds that repeated violations cost the offender the licence to operate.
What the law says
shall suffer the penalty of a fine of not less than One thousand pesos (P1,000) but not more than Ten thousand pesos (P10,000) or imprisonment of not less than three (3) months but not more than three (3) years, or both at the discretion of the court
RA 7610, Section 16 — Penalties For Employment Violations. Read the full provision →
The penalty the section sets
Section 16 supplies the sanction for breaches of RA 7610's rules on working children. A violator shall suffer the penalty of a fine of not less than One thousand pesos (P1,000) but not more than Ten thousand pesos (P10,000) or imprisonment of not less than three (3) months but not more than three (3) years, or both at the discretion of the court. Two features stand out: the penalty can be a fine, imprisonment, or both, and the choice is expressly left to the court. That discretion lets the sanction be scaled to how serious the particular violation is.
What conduct it attaches to
The penalty is not tied to a single act but to any provision of this Article — the part of RA 7610 that governs the employment of children. That Article sets the conditions under which a child may lawfully work and the protections that must surround such work. Section 16 is the enforcement clause behind those rules: breach any of them and this is the exposure. Because it operates by reference to the whole Article, the specific rule that was broken matters for establishing the violation, even though the penalty range is common to all of them.
Repeat offenders lose the licence
The section reserves a heavier consequence for those who do not learn from the first sanction. It provides that in case of repeated violations of the provisions of this Article, the offender's license to operate shall be revoked. For a business, that is a far more serious outcome than a fine within the stated range, because it removes the ability to operate at all. The escalation signals that the law treats persistent breaches of the child-employment rules as going to a business's fitness to continue, not merely as isolated infractions.
Reading the penalty in context
Because the penalty depends on which rule of the child-employment Article was violated, and because the court has real discretion over fine, imprisonment or both, the outcome in a given case is fact-specific rather than fixed. An employer unsure whether a working arrangement complies, or facing a complaint, will want to identify the precise requirement at issue. This is an area where the details of the child's age, hours, conditions and the required permits drive the analysis, so advice tailored to the specific arrangement is worth more than the headline range alone.