Text of the provision
Art. 294. Robbery with violence against or intimidation of persons - Penalties. - Any person guilty of robbery with the use of violence against or intimidation of any person shall suffer: 1. The penalty of reclusion perpetua to death, when by reason or on occasion of the robbery, the crime of homicide shall have been committed, or when the robbery shall have been accompanied by rape or intentional mutilation or arson. 2. The penalty of reclusion temporal in its medium period to reclusion perpetua, when or if by reason or on occasion of such robbery, any of the physical injuries penalized in subdivision I of Article 263 shall have been inflicted. 3. The penalty of reclusion temporal, when by reason or on occasion of the robbery, any of the physical injuries penalized in subdivision 2 of the article mentioned in the next preceding paragraph, shall have been inflicted. 4. The penalty of prision mayor in its maximum period to reclusion temporal in its medium period, if the violence or intimidation employed in the commission of the robbery shall have been carried to a degree clearly unnecessary for the commission of the crime, or when in the course of its execution, the offender shall have inflicted upon any person not responsible for its commission any of the physical injuries covered by subdivisions 3 and 4 of said Article 263. 5. The penalty of prision correccional in its maximum period to prision mayor in its medium period in other cases.
Revised Penal Code of the Philippines, Act No. 3815, as amended by Republic Act No. 7659 (1993). Reproduced in full from the text of the amending Act itself, verified word for word against the LawPhil, ChanRobles and Official Gazette renderings of that Act.
What this article means
The penalty ladder for robbery committed against a person rather than against a thing. It is graduated by what else happened in the course of the robbery, from the gravest bracket — where homicide, rape, or serious physical injuries resulted — down to plain robbery with violence or intimidation. That gravest bracket is the source of the special complex crime practitioners call robbery with homicide, which the law treats as one indivisible offence rather than as two crimes.
Related provisions
- Article 292 — Revealing Industrial Secrets.
- Article 297 — Attempted Or Frustrated Robbery With Homicide.
This is the amended text. The text above is the article as amended by Republic Act No. 7659 (1993), taken from the text of that Act itself. Reproductions of the Revised Penal Code — including both of the sources this site verifies against — still print the 1930 article, which carries a different penalty. Check which version any source you rely on is giving you.
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.