Text of the provision
Art. 278. Exploitation of minors. - The penalty of prisión correccional in its minimum and medium periods and a fine not exceeding One hundred thousand pesos (₱100,000) shall be imposed upon: 1. Any person who shall cause any boy or girl under sixteen (16) years of age to perform any dangerous feat of balancing, physical strength, or contortion. 2. Any person who, being an acrobat, gymnast, rope-walker, diver, wild-animal tamer or circus manager or engaged in a similar calling, shall employ in exhibitions of these kinds children under sixteen (16) years of age who are not his children or descendants. 3. Any person engaged in any of the callings enumerated in the next preceding paragraph who shall employ any descendant of his under twelve years (12) years of age in such dangerous exhibitions. 4. Any ascendant, guardian, teacher or person entrusted in any capacity with the care of a child under sixteen (16) Years of age, who shall deliver such child gratuitously to any person following any of the callings enumerated in paragraph 2 hereof, or to any habitual vagrant or beggar. If the delivery shall have been made in consideration of any price, compensation, or promise, the penalty shall in every case be imposed in its maximum period. In either case, the guardian or curator convicted shall also be removed from office as guardian or curator; and in the case of the parents of the child, they may be deprived, temporarily or perpetually, in the discretion of the court, of their parental authority. 5. Any person who shall induce any child under sixteen (16) years of age to abandon the home of its ascendants, guardians, curators or teachers to follow any person engaged in any of the callings mentioned in paragraph 2 hereof, or to accompany any habitual vagrant or beggar.
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
Prisión correccional in its minimum and medium periods and a fine not exceeding One hundred thousand pesos (₱100,000) punish those who make a child under sixteen (16) perform dangerous feats of balancing, strength or contortion; acrobats, animal tamers, circus managers and the like who employ children under sixteen (16) who are not their own (or their own descendants under twelve (12)); guardians or teachers who hand a child under sixteen (16) over gratuitously to such performers or to a vagrant or beggar; and anyone who induces a child under sixteen (16) to leave home to follow them. If the child was delivered for a price or promise, the penalty is imposed in its maximum period, a convicted guardian or curator is removed from office, and parents may lose parental authority.
Questions about this provision
Related provisions
- Article 277 — Abandonment Of Minor By Custodian.
- Article 280 — Qualified Trespass To Dwelling.
Penalty amounts. The text above is the article as amended by Republic Act No. 10951 (2017), which revised the property values and fines throughout this Code. Older reproductions of the Revised Penal Code still print the 1930 amounts — for theft and estafa they show 12,000 and 22,000 pesos where the current figures run to millions. Check which version any source you rely on is giving you.
Cases interpreting this article
- Authorities on this article will be added here as each is verified against primary sources.