Short answer. Three classes of people: principals, accomplices and accessories. For grave and less grave felonies all three are liable. For light felonies only principals and accomplices are — an accessory to a light felony is not criminally liable at all under the Revised Penal Code.
What the law says
The following are criminally liable for grave and less grave felonies: 1. Principals. 2. Accomplices. 3. Accessories. The following are criminally liable for light felonies: 1. Principals. 2. Accomplices.
Revised Penal Code, Article 16 — Who Are Criminally Liable. Read the full provision →
Criminal liability reaches past the person holding the weapon
Article 16 of the Revised Penal Code answers a question many people get wrong: whether you can be prosecuted for a crime you did not personally carry out. You can. The Code recognises degrees of participation, and each degree carries its own penalty — an accomplice is punished one degree lower than a principal, and an accessory two degrees lower.
So the driver waiting outside, the person who supplied the tools knowing what they were for, and the one who hid the goods afterwards are all within reach of the law. What changes is not whether they are liable but how heavily.
Principals, accomplices, accessories
Principals are those who take direct part in carrying out the act, those who directly force or induce another to commit it, and those who cooperate by an act without which the crime would not have been accomplished.
Accomplices cooperate in the execution by previous or simultaneous acts, but their contribution is not indispensable — the crime would have happened anyway. Accessories come in after the fact: knowing the crime was committed, and without having joined in it, they profit from it, help the offender profit, conceal or destroy the evidence to prevent discovery, or harbour and assist the offender to escape in the circumstances the Code specifies.
The light-felony rule, and why it matters
Read the second half of the article closely. For light felonies — the least serious offences the Code punishes — only principals and accomplices are criminally liable. Accessories are not listed at all.
That is not an oversight. The law treats helping after a very minor offence as too slight to punish. In practice this means an allegation that someone hid an object or sheltered a friend after a light felony does not, by itself, support a criminal charge against that person. Anyone facing such an accusation should check first what class the underlying felony belongs to, because the answer can dispose of the case.
Important qualifications
The Code exempts certain close relatives — spouse, ascendants, descendants, siblings and relatives by affinity within the same degrees — from liability as accessories, with a narrow exception for those who profit from the crime. Family loyalty is recognised, up to a point.
Two further warnings. Article 16 governs felonies under the Revised Penal Code; offences under special laws have their own rules on participation, and some, such as the law on fencing stolen goods, turn conduct that resembles being an accessory into a separate principal offence carrying a much heavier penalty. And criminal liability is only half the story — civil liability for the damage caused runs alongside it. If you are being investigated for helping someone, do not assume a lesser role means no exposure. Get the specific facts assessed by a lawyer.