Short answer. Two things: where it happened and how the offenders got in or got at the goods. Robbery in a dwelling, a public building or a place of worship, carried out by breaking in or by using false keys or a false identity, is punished more heavily than a robbery committed anywhere else.
What the law says
Any armed person who shall commit robbery in an inhabited house or public building or edifice devoted to religious worship, shall be punished by reclusion temporal
Revised Penal Code, Article 299 — Robbery In An Inhabited House. Read the full provision →
The place, and why it aggravates
Article 299 of the Revised Penal Code covers an inhabited house, a public building, or an edifice devoted to religious worship. What the law is protecting is not only property but the security of the home and of places people are entitled to feel safe in. A house is inhabited if it is used as a dwelling — the occupants need not be present at the moment of the robbery. Where the robbery is committed in a dependency of such a place rather than the building itself, a store room, a garage or an enclosed yard, the article expressly imposes the penalties next lower in degree.
The two lists: getting in, and getting at
The article then requires one of two sets of circumstances. The first is about entry: entering through an opening not intended for entrance or egress, breaking a wall, roof, floor, door or window, using false keys, picklocks or similar tools, or using a fictitious name or pretending to exercise public authority. The second is about what happened inside: breaking doors, wardrobes, chests, or any other locked or sealed furniture or receptacle, or carrying such furniture away to be forced open elsewhere. A robber who walks in through an unlocked front door and takes an unsecured item falls outside both lists, and a different article applies.
How the penalty scales
Two variables move it: whether the offenders were armed, and whether the value of the property taken exceeded the threshold the article sets. Armed offenders above the threshold get the full penalty. Unarmed offenders above it, and armed offenders below it, get the penalty next lower in degree. Unarmed offenders below the threshold get that lower penalty in its minimum period. The peso threshold in the current text is the one set by Republic Act No. 10951 (2017), which revised the property values throughout this Code; older reproductions still print the 1930 figures and will place a case in entirely the wrong bracket.
Where it stops, and what else can attach
This article deals with robbery by the use of force upon things. It is not the provision for robbery committed with violence against or intimidation of persons — where the occupants are threatened, tied up, hurt or killed, far graver provisions govern, and a killing on the occasion of a robbery is treated as a single special complex crime rather than two separate ones. Taking without any breaking and without violence is theft, not robbery at all. Which article applies is decided by the evidence of how entry was made, so the details matter enormously. No outcome can be promised. This page is general legal information rather than advice; to have a case reviewed, you can book a consultation.