Death Penalty Abolition Impact on Penalties for Attempted Crimes in the Philippines

The Supreme Court's 2006 ruling in People v. Bon (G.R. No. 166401) settled a critical question that arose after the Philippines abolished the death penalty: when a crime like qualified rape previously carried the single indivisible penalty of death, what penalty should apply to an attempted version of that crime? The answer affects not only the accused in that case but also the sentencing of countless convicts whose penalties were graduated from the death penalty before Republic Act No. 9346 took effect.

The Facts of the Case

Alfredo Bon was charged with eight counts of rape against his two minor nieces, AAA and BBB, committed between 1994 and 2000. The victims testified that Bon, their uncle, repeatedly raped them under threat of death. The trial court convicted Bon on all eight counts and imposed the death penalty on each, considering the qualifying circumstances of minority and relationship.

On appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed six convictions for consummated rape but downgraded two counts to attempted rape. In those two cases, the evidence showed Bon tried to insert his penis into AAA's vagina but failed to achieve even the slightest penetration—the girl cried in pain, and he stopped. The appellate court sentenced Bon for attempted rape to an indeterminate penalty of ten years of prision mayor as minimum to seventeen years and four months of reclusion temporal as maximum.

The Issue

The Supreme Court had to determine the proper penalty for attempted qualified rape after the enactment of R.A. 9346, which prohibited the imposition of the death penalty. Before the law, the penalty for consummated qualified rape was death—a single, indivisible penalty. Under Article 51 of the Revised Penal Code, an attempted felony is punishable by a penalty two degrees lower than that prescribed for the consummated felony.

Applying Article 71's graduated scale, two degrees below death is reclusion temporal. But with death abolished, should the penalty now be computed from reclusion perpetua—the highest remaining penalty—which would result in prision mayor instead?

The Ruling

The Court ruled that the penalty for attempted qualified rape remains reclusion temporal, not prision mayor. The reasoning: R.A. 9346 did not amend the graduated scale in Article 71 of the Revised Penal Code. The law simply replaced the death penalty with reclusion perpetua for crimes that carried death as the penalty. It did not change how lower penalties are computed under the graduated scale.

The Court distinguished between two types of death penalty provisions under the old law: crimes punishable by "reclusion perpetua to death" (where aggravating circumstances determined the actual penalty) and crimes like qualified rape that carried death as the automatic and exclusive penalty. For the latter, the penalty two degrees lower remains reclusion temporal because the graduation is based on the penalty prescribed by law at the time of the offense, not on what remains after abolition.

Practical Takeaways

• R.A. 9346 replaced the death penalty with reclusion perpetua for consummated crimes that previously carried death as the automatic penalty.
• For attempted qualified rape, the penalty remains reclusion temporal—two degrees lower than death under Article 71's graduated scale—even after the abolition of the death penalty.
• The distinction matters: crimes penalized with "reclusion perpetua to death" are computed differently from those with death as the single indivisible penalty.
• Courts apply the Indeterminate Sentence Law to attempted crimes, setting a maximum within the prescribed penalty and a minimum within the range of the penalty next lower.
• The ruling affects sentencing consistency for convicts whose penalties were graduated from the death penalty before R.A. 9346 took effect.

This article is general information and not legal advice. For your specific situation, consult a lawyer or ask ASG Legal AI.