Text of the provision
Art. 12. Circumstances Which Exempt from Criminal Liability. — The following are exempt from criminal liability: 1. An imbecile or an insane person, unless the latter has acted during a lucid interval. When the imbecile or an insane person has committed an act which the law defines as a felony (delito), the court shall order his confinement in one of the hospitals or asylums established for persons thus afflicted, which he shall not be permitted to leave without first obtaining the permission of the same court. 2. A person under nine years of age. 3. A person over nine years of age and under fifteen, unless he has acted with discernment, in which case, such minor shall be proceeded against in accordance with the provisions of article 80 of this Code. When such minor is adjudged to be criminally irresponsible, the court, in conformity with the provisions of this and the preceding paragraph, shall commit him to the care and custody of his family who shall be charged with his surveillance and education; otherwise, he shall be committed to the care of some institution or person mentioned in said article 80. 4. Any person who, while performing a lawful act with due care, causes an injury by mere accident without fault or intention of causing it. 5. Any person who acts under the compulsion of an irresistible force. 6. Any person who acts under the impulse of an uncontrollable fear of an equal or greater injury. 7. Any person who fails to perform an act required by law, when prevented by some lawful or insuperable cause.
Revised Penal Code of the Philippines, Act No. 3815, as amended. Reproduced in full from the Official Gazette’s publication of the Act, which is followed here as the text of record. The LawPhil rendering differs from it at this article by a single typographical variant — it prints “irresponsbile” for “irresponsible” — and the ChanRobles rendering carries further variants of its own, so the three sources do not form the usual word-for-word majority. The Gazette’s reading was adopted by decision of counsel on 20 July 2026.
What this article means
Where Article 11 says the act was not wrong, this article says the actor is not answerable for it: the deed remains a felony, but criminal liability does not attach to the person who did it. It covers insanity and imbecility (unless the accused acted during a lucid interval), the age paragraphs, accident — a lawful act performed with due care that causes injury by mere accident, without fault or intention — acting under an irresistible force, acting under an uncontrollable fear of an equal or greater injury, and failing to act when prevented by a lawful or insuperable cause. Exemption is personal to the actor, and unlike Article 11 it does not erase the wrong, so civil liability can survive where criminal liability does not.
Related provisions
- Article 11 — Justifying Circumstances: Self-Defence And Defence Of Others.
- Article 13 — Mitigating Circumstances.
On this text. This article is reproduced as the Revised Penal Code enacted it, following the Official Gazette’s publication of the Act; the sources do not agree word for word here, and the citation above sets out the single variant that separates them. 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.
Minority. The age thresholds in this article are no longer the governing rule. Republic Act No. 9344 (2006), as amended by Republic Act No. 10630 (2013), exempts from criminal liability a child who was fifteen years of age or under at the time of the offence, and a child above fifteen but below eighteen unless that child acted with discernment; an exempt child goes through an intervention or diversion programme instead of a prosecution. Read the paragraphs below on age subject to that Act — and note that the Article 80 procedure they point to no longer exists.
Cases interpreting this article
- Authorities on this article will be added here as each is verified against primary sources.