Short answer. Three things reduce criminal liability without erasing it: a conditional pardon, a commutation of the sentence, and good conduct allowances earned while serving. Republic Act No. 10592 (2013) expanded the credit rules and added a special time allowance for loyalty. Each shortens or softens the penalty; none makes the conviction disappear.
What the law says
Criminal liability is extinguished partially: 1. By conditional pardon; 2. By commutation of the sentence; and 3. For good conduct allowances which the culprit may earn while he is serving his sentence.
Revised Penal Code, Article 94 — Partial Extinction Of Liability. Read the full provision →
Partial is not the same as total
The Revised Penal Code separates two very different outcomes. Total extinction — death of the convict, service of the sentence, absolute pardon, amnesty, prescription — ends the liability itself. Partial extinction only cuts the penalty down. The conviction stays on record, the accessory penalties attached to the sentence generally remain, and the civil liability owed to the offended party is untouched: a person released early still owes the restitution, reparation or indemnity the court imposed. Families often assume an early release wipes the slate clean. It does not, and that misunderstanding causes real problems later with employment clearances, licences and travel.
Conditional pardon and commutation
Both are acts of executive clemency, granted by the President, not by the trial court. A conditional pardon releases the convict on terms — most commonly that he not commit another offence within a stated period. Breaching the condition can expose him to serving the remitted portion, on top of whatever new case he faces. A commutation substitutes a lighter penalty for the one imposed, for example reducing a longer term to a shorter one. Neither is a right you can demand and neither is a finding that the conviction was wrong. They are discretionary, applied for through the corrections and clemency machinery, and refusal cannot be appealed like a judgment.
Good conduct time allowance today
The third route is the one most prisoners actually use: credit earned by behaving well in confinement. Republic Act No. 10592, enacted in 2013, substantially rewrote this area. It increased the deductions available for each period of good behaviour, extended credit to detention prisoners in some situations, and added a special time allowance for loyalty for a prisoner who stays put or surrenders after a calamity that lets others escape. It also excludes certain categories of convict — including recidivists, habitual delinquents, escapees and those convicted of heinous crimes — from the benefit. So the bare text of Article 94 no longer tells the whole story; RA 10592 and its rules do.
What this does not cover
Article 94 says nothing about probation, parole, bail, or the credit for preventive imprisonment — those come from separate provisions and separate laws, each with its own eligibility rules and disqualifications. It also does not touch the civil liability arising from the offence, which survives release and can be enforced separately by the offended party. Computing an actual release date requires the commitment order, the exact penalty imposed, the credits certified by the corrections authority, and any disqualification under RA 10592. That arithmetic is fact-specific. If a relative is nearing release, have counsel check the computation against the records rather than relying on a general rule.