DIWATA NOTES
Special Penal Laws
I. PENALIZING OBSTRUCTION OF
APPREHENSION AND PROSECUTION OF
CRIMINAL OFFENDERS (PD 1829)
1. How is obsruction of justice committed?
• Knowingly or willfully obstructing, impeding,
frustrating or delaying the apprehension of
suspects and the investigation and prosecution
of criminal cases.
2. What is the purpose of PD 1829?
• As stated in the law, the purpose is to
discourage public indifference or apathy
towards the apprehension and prosecution of
criminal offenders, it is necessary to penalize
acts which obstruct or frustrate or tend to
obstruct or frustrate the successful
apprehension and prosecution of criminal
offenders.
3. Who may be charged under PD 1829?
• Any person, whether public or private, who
commits the punishable acts under this Act.
• In case a public officer is found guilty, he shall
also suffer perpetual disqualification from
holding public office.
4. What are the specific acts punishable under
obstruction of justice? (P2H-DAM-STG)
a. preventing witnesses from testifying
in any criminal proceeding or from
reporting the commission of any offense
or the identity of any offender/s by
means of bribery, misrepresentation,
deceit, intimidation, force or threats;
b. altering, destroying, suppressing or
concealing any paper, record,
document, or object, with intent to
impair its verity, authenticity, legibility,
availability, or admissibility as evidence
in any investigation of or official
proceedings in, criminal cases, or to be
used in the investigation of, or official
proceedings in, criminal cases;
c. harboring or concealing, or
facilitating the escape of, any person
he knows, or has reasonable ground to
believe or suspect, has committed any
offense under existing penal laws in
order to prevent his arrest prosecution
and conviction;
/wncverder2016
d. publicly using a fictitious name for the
purpose of concealing a crime,
evading prosecution or the execution of
a judgment, or concealing his true
name and other personal circumstances
for the same purpose or purposes;
e. delaying the prosecution of criminal
cases by obstructing the service of
process or court orders or disturbing
proceedings in the fiscal's offices, in
Tanodbayan, or in the courts;
f. making, presenting or using any
record, document, paper or object with
knowledge of its falsity and with intent
to affect the course or outcome of the
investigation of, or official proceedings
in, criminal cases;
g. soliciting, accepting, or agreeing to
accept any benefit in consideration of
abstaining from, discounting, or
impeding the prosecution of a criminal
offender;
h. threatening directly or indirectly
another with the infliction of any
wrong upon his person, honor or
property or that of any immediate
member or members of his family in
order to prevent such person from
appearing in the investigation of, or
official proceedings in, criminal cases,
or imposing a condition, whether lawful
or unlawful, in order to prevent a person
from appearing in the investigation of
or in official proceedings in, criminal
cases;
i. giving of false or fabricated
information to mislead or prevent the
law enforcement agencies from
apprehending the offender or from
protecting the life or property of the
victim; or fabricating information from
the data gathered in confidence by
investigating authorities for purposes of
background information and not for
publication and publishing or
disseminating the same to mislead the
investigator or to the court.
5. What is the penalty for obstruction of
justice?
• The penalty is imprisonment, fine or both.
Imprisonment ranges from 4 years, 2 months
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 DIWATA NOTES
Special Penal Laws
and 1 day to 6 years (prision correccional in its
maximum period). The fine ranges from P1,000
– P6,000.
6. Suppose a higher penalty is imposed by
another law on one of abovementioned acts?
• The higher penalty shall be imposed.
7. Suppose the violator is a public official or
employee?
• He shall in addition to the penalties provided
thereunder, suffer perpetual disqualification
from holding public office.
JURISPRUDENCE AND DOCTRINE(S):
1. Enrile vs. Amin
ISSUE: Whether or not the petitioner could be
separately charged for violation of PD No. 1829
notwithstanding the rebellion case earlier filed
against Senator Juan Ponce Enrile.
RULING:
The Enrile case gave this Court the occasion to
reiterate the long standing proscription against
splitting the component offenses of rebellion and
subjecting them to separate prosecutions, a
procedure reprobated in the Hernandez case.
In the light of the Hernandez doctrine, the
prosecution's theory must fail. The rationale
remains the same. All crimes, whether punishable
under a special law or general law, which are
mere components or ingredients, or committed
in furtherance thereof, become absorbed in the
crime of rebellion and can not be isolated and
charged as separate crimes in themselves.
The Hernandez and other related cases mention
common crimes as absorbed in the crime of
rebellion. These common crimes refer to all acts of
violence such as murder, arson, robbery,
kidnapping etc. as provided in the Revised Penal
Code. The attendant circumstances in the instant
case, however, constrain us to rule that the
theory of absorption in rebellion cases must not
confine itself to common crimes but also to
offenses under special laws which are
perpetrated in furtherance of the political
offense.
/wncverder2016
The conversation and, therefore, alleged
conspiring of Senator Ponce Enrile with Colonel
Honasan is too intimately tied up with his
allegedly harboring and concealing Honasan for
practically the same act to form two separate
crimes of rebellion and violation of PD No.
1829.
Clearly, the petitioner's alleged act of harboring or
concealing which was based on his acts of
conspiring with Honasan was committed in
connection with or in furtherance of rebellion and
must now be deemed as absorbed by, merged in,
and Identified with the crime of rebellion punished
in Articles 134 and 135 of the RPC.
In such a case, the independent prosecution under
PD 1829 can not prosper.
The intent or motive is a decisive factor. If
Senator Ponce Enrile is not charged with rebellion
and he harbored or concealed Colonel Honasan
simply because the latter is a friend and former
associate, the motive for the act is completely
different. But if the act is committed with
political or social motives, that is in furtherance
of rebellion, then it should be deemed to form
part of the crime of rebellion instead of being
punished separately. In view of the foregoing, the
petitioner can not be tried separately under PD
1829 in addition to his being prosecuted in the
rebellion case. With this ruling, there is no need for
the Court to pass upon the other issues raised by
the petitioner.
2. Angeles vs. Gaite
Unserved warrants are not tantamount to a
violation of the law on obstruction of justice.
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