Text of the provision
Art. 120. Correspondence with hostile country. -Any person, who in time of war, shall have correspondence with an enemy country or territory occupied by enemy troops shall be punished: 1. By prision correccional, if the correspondence has been prohibited by the Government; 2. By prision mayor, if such correspondence be carried on in ciphers or conventional signs; and 3. By reclusion temporal, if notice or information be given thereby which might be useful to the enemy. If the offender intended to aid the enemy by giving such notice or information he shall suffer the penalty of reclusion temporal to death.
Revised Penal Code of the Philippines, Act No. 3815, as amended. Reproduced in full from the official enactment and verified against the LawPhil and ChanRobles renderings.
What this article means
Communicating in wartime with an enemy country or enemy-occupied territory is punished by prision correccional if the correspondence was prohibited by the Government, by prision mayor if it was in cipher or conventional signs, and by reclusion temporal if it passed information useful to the enemy. If the offender meant to aid the enemy by giving that information, the penalty is reclusion temporal to death.
Related provisions
- Article 119 — Violation Of Neutrality.
- Article 122 — Piracy And Mutiny.
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.
The death penalty. This article still refers to the penalty of death. Republic Act No. 9346 (2006) prohibits the imposition of the death penalty in the Philippines. In its place the law imposes reclusión perpetua where the Revised Penal Code’s nomenclature is used, or life imprisonment where it is not. Read this article subject to that prohibition.
Cases interpreting this article
- Authorities on this article will be added here as each is verified against primary sources.