C.

Liability for incomplete elements

1. Uncompleted crimes
A. Attempted and Frustrated Felonies
Attempted felonies - offender commences the commission of a felony directly by
overt acts, and does not perform all the acts of execution which should produce
the felony by reason of some cause or accident other than this own spontaneous
desistance.
Frustrated felonies - the offender performs all the acts of execution which would
produce the felony as a consequence but which, nevertheless, do not produce it
by reason of causes independent of the will of the perpetrator.

Overt acts - attempt begins when act can be reasonably interpreted to bring about
result of felony (if allowed to continue its normal course, it wouldve produced the
result), ie .45 caliber gun pointed at victim
Spontaneous desistance - even if intent clearly discernible, but voluntarily
desisted, perpetuator is relieved of criminal liability for that act

US vs. Eduave

B. Examples of specific felonies

Illegal trespass entering without consent
Physical injuries, Homicide, Murder
Theft no frustrated stage; result is needed
Robbery taking with force/violence
Rape no frustrated stage, dependent on execution

C. Light felonies punishable only when consummated

2. Impossible crimes
Satisfies the first three elements of criminal liability (physical element, mental
element, concurrence)
Requirements:
- Act would have been an offense against persons or property

Felonies vs persons: parricide, murder, homicide, infanticide, abortion,

duel, physical injuries, rape

Felonies vs property: robbery, brigandage, theft, usurpation, culpable

insolvency, swindling and other deceits, chattel mortgage, arson and
other crimes involving destruction, malicious mischief

- Act was done with evil intent

- Accomplishment is inherently impossible (legal impossibility, or intended

acts, even if completed, would not amount to a crime; or physical
impossibility) or that means employed were either inadequate (ex:
 amount of arsenic not enough) or ineffectual (ex: firing a gun when it is
empty)

- Act performed would not constitute a violation of another provision of the

RPC

Purpose: To suppress criminal propensity or criminal tendencies.

Objectively has not committed a felony, but a criminal intent subjectively

3. Proposals and conspiracies (Art. 8)

- Conspiracy and proposal not punishable, except when a law specifically provides
a penalty. Why? These are only preparatory acts.
- There are specific penalties for conspiracy and proposals for treason, coup detat,
rebellion, sedition
- Acts of proposing and agreeing are already beyond preparatory acts (begins the
attempt)
- When the conspiracy relates to a crime actually committed, it is not a felony but
only a manner of incurring criminal liability. It is not a separate offense.l
- Indication of conspiracy
- acts of defendants must show a common design
- Requisites of conspiracy
1. Two or more persons came into an agreement
2. The agreement concerned the commission of a felony
3. The execution of the felony be decided upon
- Period of time to afford opportunity for meditation and reflection is not
required in conspiracy.

D. Liability for multiple elements

- Plurality of Crimes
1. material (or real) plurality of crimes: different criminal intents result in two or
more crimes, for each of which the accused incurs criminal liability.
2. Formal (or ideal) plurality of crimes: the same criminal intent results in two or
more component crimes constituting a complex crime for which there is only one
criminal liability.
Divisions: complex crimes, special complex crimes, continuing crimes
- Philosophy: Through the concept of plural crimes, several crimes are treated as
one. The purpose of this is to allow leniency towards the offender, who, instead of
being made to suffer distinct penalties for every resulting crime is made to suffer
one penalty only, although it is the penalty for the most serious one and is imposed
in its maximum period.

1. Multiple crimes
- multiple sets of criminal liability.
 - successive execution by the same individual of several different criminal
acts
- two or more grave or less grave felonies are results of several different
acts
- material (or real) plurality of crimes: different criminal intents result
in two or more crimes, for each of which the accused incurs
criminal liability.
- person committing multiple crimes is punished with ONE penalty in the
following cases:

1. When the offender commits any of the complex crimes defined in Art.
48 of the Code.
2. When the law specifically fixes a single penalty for two or more
offenses committed.

2. Complex crimes
- It requires the commission of at least two crimes but must result from A)
a single act, or B) the offense must be necessary for committing the
other.

- A complex crime is only ONE CRIME. The offender has only one
criminal intent. Even in the case where an offense is a necessary means
for committing the other, the evil intent of the offender is only one.
Hence, there is only one penalty imposed.

- When a single act constitutes two or more grave or less grave felonies,
or when an offense is a necessary means for committing the other, the
penalty for the most serious crime shall be imposed, the same to be
applied in its maximum period.

- Formal (or ideal) plurality of crimes: the same criminal intent

results in two or more component crimes constituting a complex
crime for which there is only one criminal liability

- When the offender executes various acts, he must have a single

purpose.

- No complex crime where one of the offense is penalized by a special

law (treason?)

- Two kinds of complex crimes:

(1) Compound
- When a single act constitutes two or more grave or less grave felonies
- Requisites
1) Only a single act is performed by the offender
 2) That the single act produces (a) two or more grave felonies, or (b)
one or more grave and one or more less grave felonies, or (c) two or
more less grave felonies.

- includes negligence
(2) Complex crime proper
- When an offense is necessary means for committing the other.
- When the offender executes various acts, he must have a single
purpose. But when there are several acts performed, the assumption is
each act is impelled by a distinct criminal impulse, hence each will have
a separate penalty.
- Requisites
1) that at least two offenses are committed
2) that one or some of the offenses must be necessary to commit the
other
3) that both or all the offenses must be punished under the same
statute.

- Light felonies produced by the same act should be treated and punished
as separate offenses or may be absorbed by the grave felony.

Examples: a) Several light felonies resulting from one single act; b)

when the crime is committed by force or violence, slight physical injuries
are absorbed

- The single act of throwing a hand grenade producing murder and

multiple attempted murders constitute a compound complex crime
(People vs. Guillen)
- Although the pressing of the trigger is a single act, the number of bullets
were the ones which actually produced the felonies and the crime is
considered to be of several acts. (People vs. Sanchez)
- When, for the attainment of a single purpose which constitutes an
offense, various acts are executed, such acts must be considered only
as one offense a complex one (People vs. Abella)
- There is no complex crime of rebellion with murder, arson, robbery, or
other common crimes (Enrile vs. Salazar)
- Resulting deaths and injuries were due to several different acts,
therefore not a complex crime. (People vs. Nelmida)
- Art. 48 is intended to favor the culprit. (Intestate Estate of Gonzales vs.
People) [Complex Crime Proper, requisite 2]

- Plurality of crimes vs. Recidivsm

In recidivism, there must be conviction by final judgment of the
first or prior offense; in plurality of crimes, there is no conviction of
any of the crimes committed.
3. Composite or special composite crime
- Component crimes constituting a single indivisible offense, and are
penalized under one article of the RPC. (robbery w/ homicide, robbery w/ rape,
kidnapping w/ serious physical injuries, kidnapping w/ murder or homicide, rape w/
homicide, slander by deed, crime against minors)
- Art. 48 does not apply when the law provides one single penalty for special
complex crimes (People vs. Arizobal)

4. Continuing crime; Transitory crime

A. Continuing Crime
- a single crime, consisting of a series of acts but all arising from one criminal
resolution
- A continuing offense is a continuous, unlawful act or series of acts set on
foot by a single impulse and operated by an unintermittent force, however long a time
it may occupy.
- Although there is a series of acts, there is only one crime committed.
Hence, only one penalty shall be imposed.
- The series of acts born of a single criminal impulse may be perpetrated
during a long period of time.
- When two acts are deemed distinct from one another although proceeding
from the same criminal impulse
- A continuing crime is not a complex crime, because the offender in
continued or continuous crime does not perform a single act, but a series of acts, and
one offense is not a necessary means for committing the other. Not being a complex
crime, the penalty for continued crime is not to be imposed in the maximum period.
- A continued crime is different from a transitory crime.
- In real or material plurality as well as in continued crime, there is a series
of acts performed by the offender.
While in real or material plurality, each act performed by the offender
constitutes a separate crime, because each act is generated by a criminal impulse; in
continued crime, the different acts constitute only one crime because all of the acts
performed arise from one criminal resolution.

B. Transitory Crime
- Moving crime
- the criminal action may be instituted and tried in the court of the
municipality, city or province wherein any of the essential ingredients thereof took
place.
- The singleness of the crime, committed by executing two or more acts, is
not considered.
III. Circumstances affecting criminal liability

A. Justifying circumstances, Art. 11

- Definition
Justifying circumstances are those where the act of a person is said to be
in accordance with law, so that such person is deemed not to have transgressed
the law and is free from both criminal and civil liability.

There is no civil liability, except in par. 4 of Art. 11, where the civil liability is borne
by the persons benefited by the act.

- Basis of justifying circumstances.

The law recognizes the non-existence of a crime by expressly stating in the
opening sentence of Article 11 that the persons therein mentioned "do not incur
any criminal liability."

- Act justified, said to be in accordance with law (no crime), so that the person is
deemed not to have transgressed the law and is free from both criminal and civil
liability, except under avoidance of greater evil, by doing damage where act per se
is unlawful, incurs civil liability

- The circumstances mentioned in Art. 11 are matters of defense and it is incumbent

upon the accused, in order to avoid criminal liability, to prove the justifying
circumstance claimed by him to the satisfaction of the court.

- In self-defense, the burden of proof rests upon the accused. His duty is to establish
self-defense by clear and convincing evidence, otherwise, conviction would follow
from his admission that he killed the victim. He must rely on the strength of his own
evidence and not on the weakness of that for the prosecution

- It would be quite impossible for the State in all cases to prevent aggression upon
its citizens (and even foreigners, of course) and offer protection to the person
unjustly attacked. On the other hand, it cannot be conceived that a person should
succumb to an unlawful aggression without offering any resistance. (Guevara)

The law on self-defense embodied in any penal system in the civilized world finds
justification in man's natural instinct to protect, repel, and save his person or rights
from impending danger or peril; it is based on that impulse of self-preservation born
to man and part of his nature as a human being. To the Classicists in penal law,
lawful defense is grounded on the impossibility on the part of the State to avoid a
present unjust aggression and protect a person unlawfully attacked, and therefore
it is inconceivable for the State to require that the innocent succumb to an unlawful
aggression without resistance, while to the Positivists, lawful defense is an
exercise of a right, an act of social justice done to repel the attack of an aggression.
1. Defense of self, relatives, strangers
- Anyone who acts in defense of his person or rights, provided that the
following circumstances concur

A. Unlawful aggression
Requisites
(a) there must be a physical or material attack or assault;
(b) the attack or assault must be actual, or, at least, imminent; and
(c) the attack or assault must be unlawful.

Kinds
(a) actual or material unlawful aggression; and
(b) imminent unlawful aggression

B. reasonable necessity of the means employed to prevent or repel it

C. Lack of sufficient provocation on the part of the person defending himself.

- Anyone who acts in defense of the person or rights of his spouse, ascendants,
descendants, or legitimate, natural or adopted brothers or sisters, or his relatives
by affinity in the same degrees and those consanguinity within the fourth civil
degree, provided that the first and second requisites prescribed in the next
preceding circumstance are present, and the further requisite, in case the
revocation was given by the person attacked, that the one making defense had no
part therein.

- Anyone who acts in defense of the person or rights of a stranger, provided that the
first and second requisites mentioned in the first circumstance of this article are
present and that the person defending be not induced by revenge, resentment, or
other evil motive