Arson (PD 1613)

Atty. Juvi H. Gayatao

Arson Defined:

 Any person who burns or sets fire to the property of

another shall be punished by Prision Mayor.
 The same penalty shall be imposed when a person sets
fire to his own property under circumstances which
expose to danger the life or property of another.
 Destructive Arson (RPC)
 The penalty of Reclusion Temporal in its maximum period to Reclusion Perpetua shall be imposed if
the property burned is any of the following:
 1. Any ammunition factory and other establishment where explosives, inflammable or combustible
materials are stored. 
 2. Any archive, museum, whether public or private, or any edifice devoted to culture, education or
social services. 
 3. Any church or place of worship or other building where people usually assemble.
 4. Any train, airplane or any aircraft, vessel or watercraft, or conveyance for transportation of persons
or property
 5. Any building where evidence is kept for use in any legislative, judicial, administrative or other
official proceedings.
 6. Any hospital, hotel, dormitory, lodging house, housing tenement, shopping center, public or private
market, theater or movie house or any similar place or building.
 7. Any building, whether used as a dwelling or not, situated in a populated or congested area.
RA 7659 (December 13, 1993)
 Section 10. Article 320 of the same Code is hereby amended to read as follows:
 "Art. 320. Destructive Arson. - The penalty of reclusion perpetua to death shall be imposed upon any person who shall
burn:
 1. One (1) or more buildings or edifices, consequent to one single act of burning, or as a result of simultaneous
burnings, committed on several or different occasions.
 2. Any building of public or private ownership, devoted to the public in general or where people usually gather or
congregate for a definite purpose such as, but not limited to, official governmental function or business, private
transaction, commerce, trade, workshop, meetings and conferences, or merely incidental to a definite purpose such
as but not limited to hotels, motels, transient dwellings, public conveyances or stops or terminals, regardless of
whether the offender had knowledge that there are persons in said building or edifice at the time it is set on fire and
regardless also of whether the building is actually inhabited or not.
 3. Any train or locomotive, ship or vessel, airship or airplane, devoted to transportation or conveyance, or for public
use, entertainment or leisure.
 4. Any building, factory, warehouse installation and any appurtenances thereto, which are devoted to the service of
public utilities.
 5. Any building the burning of which is for the purpose of concealing or destroying evidence of another violation of
law, or for the purpose of concealing bankruptcy or defrauding creditors or to collect from insurance.
 Irrespective of the application of the above enumerated qualifying circumstances, the
penalty of reclusion perpetua to death shall likewise be imposed when the arson is
perpetrated or committed by two (2) or more persons or by a group of persons, regardless
of whether their purpose is merely to burn or destroy the building or the burning merely
constitutes an overt act in the commission or another violation of law.
 The penalty of reclusion perpetua to death shall also be imposed upon any person who
shall burn:
 1. Any arsenal, shipyard, storehouse or military powder or fireworks factory, ordnance,
storehouse, archives or general museum of the Government.
 2. In an inhabited place, any storehouse or factory of inflammable or explosive materials.
 If as a consequence of the commission of any of the acts penalized under this Article, death
results, the mandatory penalty of death shall be imposed."
 Other Cases of Arson
The penalty of Reclusion Temporal to Reclusion Perpetua shall be imposed if
the property burned is any of the following:
 1. Any building used as offices of the government or any of its agencies;
 2. Any inhabited house or dwelling;
 3. Any industrial establishment, shipyard, oil well or mine shaft, platform
or tunnel;
 4. Any plantation, farm, pastureland, growing crop, grain field, orchard,
bamboo grove or forest; 
 4. Any rice mill, sugar mill, cane mill or mill central; and
 5. Any railway or bus station, airport, wharf or warehouse.
 Special Aggravating Circumstances in Arson

The penalty in any case of arson shall be imposed in its maximum

period;
 1. If committed with intent to gain;
 2. If committed for the benefit of another;
 3. If the offender is motivated by spite or hatred towards the
owner or occupant of the property burned;
 4. If committed by a syndicate.
 The offense is committed by a syndicate if its is planned or
carried out by a group of three (3) or more persons.
Robbery with Arson
 RA 7659 (RA9346)

 Section 9. Article 294 of the same Code is hereby amended to read as

follows:
 "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.
ROBBERY WITH VIOLENCE AGAINST OR INTIMIDATION OF PERSON: (Art.
294)
ELEMENTS
1. Acts punished as robbery with violence against or intimidation of persons
2. By reason or on occasion of the robbery, the following are committed:
a. Homicide,
b. Robbery accompanied with rape or intentional mutilation, SPI – insane, imbecile, impotent or blind
c. SPI – lost the use of speech, hear, smell, eye, hand, foot, arm, leg, use of any such member,
incapacitated for work habitually engaged in
d. Violence/intimidation shall have been carried to a degree clearly unnecessary for the crime or when in
the cause of its execution – SPI/deformity, or shall have lost any part of the body or the use thereof or
shall have been ill or incapacitated for the performance of the work for > 90 days; > 30 days

3. Any kind of robbery with less serious physical injuries or slight physical injuries
Order…

1. Robbery with Homicide

2. Robbery with Rape
3. Robbery with Mutilation
4. Robbery with Arson (RA 7659)
5. Robbery with Serious Physical Injuries
 Where Death Results from Arson

 If by reason of or on the occasion of the arson

death results, the penalty of Reclusion Perpetua
to death shall be imposed.
 People v. Malngan
G.R. No. 170470, September 26, 2006, 503 SCRA 294, 315-318

The Supreme Court held that there is no complex crime of arson with homicide because the crime
of arson absorbs the resultant death or is a separate crime altogether, to wit:
Accordingly, in cases where both burning and death occur, in order to determine what
crime/crimes was/were perpetrated - whether arson, murder or arson and homicide/murder, it is de
rigueur to ascertain the main objective of the malefactor: (a) if the main objective is the burning of the
building or edifice, but death results by reason or on the occasion of arson, the crime is
simply arson, and the resulting homicide is absorbed;
(b) if, on the other hand, the main objective is to kill a particular person who may be in a building or
edifice, when fire is resorted to as the means to accomplish such goal the crime committed
is murder only; lastly,
(c) if the objective is, likewise, to kill a particular person, and in fact the offender has already done so,
but fire is resorted to as a means to cover up the killing, then there are two separate and distinct
crimes committed — homicide/murder and arson.
FRUSTRATED ARSON

US v. Valdez G.R. No. L-14128 December 10, 1918

The offender had tried to burn the premises by gathering jute sacks laying these inside
the room. He lighted these, and as soon as the jute sacks began to burn, he ran away. The
occupants of the room put out the fire. The court held that what was committed was
frustrated arson.

People vs Garcia
The Supreme Court followed the analysis that one cannot say that the offender in the
crime of arson has already performed all the acts of execution which would produce the
arson as a consequence, unless and until a part of the premises had begun to burn.
 Prima Facie evidence of Arson
Any of the following circumstances shall constitute prima facie evidence of
arson:
 1. If the fire started simultaneously in more than one part of the building
or establishment. 
 2. If substantial amount of flammable substances or materials are stored
within the building note necessary in the business of the offender nor for
household us.
 3. If gasoline, kerosene, petroleum or other flammable or combustible
substances or materials soaked therewith or containers thereof, or any
mechanical, electrical, chemical, or electronic contrivance designed to
start a fire, or ashes or traces of any of the foregoing are found in the ruins
or premises of the burned building or property.
 4. If the building or property is insured for substantially more than its
actual value at the time of the issuance of the policy.
 5. If during the lifetime of the corresponding fire insurance policy more
than two fires have occurred in the same or other premises owned or
under the control of the offender and/or insured.
 6. If shortly before the fire, a substantial portion of the effects insured and
stored in a building or property had been withdrawn from the premises
except in the ordinary course of business.
 7. If a demand for money or other valuable consideration was made
before the fire in exchange for the desistance of the offender or for the
safety of the person or property of the victim.
Conspiracy to commit Arson

 Conspiracy to commit arson shall be

punished by Prision Mayor in its minimum
period.
 Confiscation of Object of Arson

 The building which is the object of arson including the land on

which it is situated shall be confiscated and escheated to the
State, unless the owner thereof can prove that he has no
participation in nor knowledge of such arson despite the exercise
of due diligence on his part.