Text of the provision
Art. 11. Justifying circumstances. -The following do not incur any criminal liability: 1. Anyone who acts in defense of his person or rights, provided that the following circumstances concur: First. Unlawful aggression; Second. Reasonable necessity of the means employed to prevent or repel it; Third. Lack of sufficient provocation on the part of the person defending himself. 2. Anyone who acts in defense of the person or rights of his spouse, ascendants, descendants, or legitimate, natural or adopted brothers or sisters, or of his relatives by affinity in the same degrees, and those by consanguinity within the fourth civil degree, provided that the first and second requisites prescribed in the next preceding circumstance are present, and the further requisite, in case the provocation was given by the person attacked, that the one making defense had no part therein. 3. Anyone who acts in defense of the person or rights of a stranger, provided that the first and second requisites mentioned in the first circumstance of this article are present and that the person defending be not induced by revenge, resentment, or other evil motive. 4. Any person who, in order to avoid an evil or injury, does an act which causes damage to another, provided that the following requisites are present: First. That the evil sought to be avoided actually exists; Second. That the injury feared be greater than that done to avoid it; Third. That there be no other practical and less harmful means of preventing it. 5. Any person who acts in the fulfillment of a duty or in the lawful exercise of a right or office. 6. Any person who acts in obedience to an order issued by a superior for some lawful purpose.
Revised Penal Code of the Philippines, Act No. 3815, as amended. Reproduced in full. The three sources consulted do not read identically here; the text above is the reading carried by two of the three, including the Official Gazette.
What this article means
This is the article behind every claim of self-defence. An act that would otherwise be a crime carries no criminal liability at all if it falls within one of the six situations listed: defence of one’s own person or rights, defence of a relative, defence of a stranger, avoidance of a greater evil, fulfilment of a duty or the lawful exercise of a right or office, and obedience to a lawful order of a superior. Self-defence has three requisites and all three must concur — unlawful aggression, reasonable necessity of the means employed, and lack of sufficient provocation on the part of the person defending himself. Because the act is justified rather than merely excused, there is no crime at all, and so no civil liability arising from a crime either.
Related provisions
- Article 9 — Grave, Less Grave, Light Felonies.
- Article 12 — Exempting Circumstances: Insanity, Accident And Minority.
On this text. This article is reproduced as the Revised Penal Code enacted it, verified word-for-word against two independent sources. Republic Act No. 10951 (2017) revised the penalty amounts in many other articles of this Code; where an amount appears below it is the figure this article itself carries.
Cases interpreting this article
- Authorities on this article will be added here as each is verified against primary sources.