Short answer. Forcing someone becomes grave coercion when a person, with no authority of law, uses violence, threats or intimidation either to stop another from doing something the law allows, or to make him do something against his will. It does not matter whether what was demanded was right or wrong.
What the law says
shall be imposed upon any person who, without any authority of law, shall, by means of violence, threats, or intimidation, prevent another from doing something not prohibited by law, or compel him to do something against his will, whether it be right or wrong
Revised Penal Code, Article 286 — Grave Coercions. Read the full provision →
The three elements, in plain terms
Article 286 of the Revised Penal Code needs all three. There must be an act of preventing or compelling — the victim is stopped from doing something the law does not forbid, or pushed into doing something he did not want to do. That pressure must be applied by means of violence, threats, or intimidation. And the person applying it must have had no authority of law to do so.
Persuasion, nagging, social pressure and hard bargaining are not this crime. What the article punishes is the substitution of force for the other person's free choice. A shove, a raised fist, a threat to hurt somebody's family, or a credible threat of serious harm all qualify.
"Whether it be right or wrong" — the trap for self-help
The article closes the most common defence before it is raised. It is no answer that the thing demanded was something the victim genuinely owed or ought to have done. The law says the compulsion is punished whether it be right or wrong.
This is where landlords, lenders and employers get into trouble. Padlocking a tenant's unit, cutting the power or water to force somebody out, seizing a debtor's belongings, or blocking a driveway to make a neighbour comply are all attempts to take by force what the law says must be taken through a court. Being in the right about the underlying dispute does not license the method.
The penalty today, after RA 10951
The penalty is prisión correccional and a fine not exceeding One hundred thousand pesos (₱100,000). That peso figure is current only because of Republic Act No. 10951 (2017), which revised the fines and property values throughout the Revised Penal Code. Older reproductions still carry the 1930 amounts, which are far smaller and no longer good law.
If a source you are reading gives a different figure for this article, check its date before relying on it. Prisión correccional is measured in months and years, so a conviction here is a serious matter for the accused, not a token penalty.
When the penalty goes up, and what to do
The second paragraph raises the penalty by one degree in two situations: where the coercion violates the exercise of the right of suffrage, and where it is used to compel a religious act or to prevent someone from performing one. Voting and worship get extra protection because coercion there attacks something beyond the individual victim.
If you are the one being coerced, preserve the evidence while it is fresh — messages, call logs, CCTV, photographs of a padlocked door or a blocked gate, and the names of anyone who saw it. A barangay blotter entry made the same day is worth a great deal later. Nobody can promise how a complaint will end; take what you have to a lawyer and get the facts matched against the elements before filing.