Prescription as a mode of total extinction
Prescription is the loss, by lapse of the period fixed by law, of the State's power either to prosecute an offense or to enforce a penalty already imposed by final judgment. In criminal law, it is not a mere technical defense; it is a substantive limit on criminal liability grounded on public policy, repose, and the presumption that the State should act with reasonable promptness when it seeks to punish.
Article 89 of the Revised Penal Code treats prescription as a cause of total extinction of criminal liability in two distinct senses: prescription of the crime and prescription of the penalty. Prescription of the crime bars the criminal action before conviction; prescription of the penalty bars the execution of the sentence after final judgment and evasion of service.
The extinction is total as to criminal liability, but it does not by itself wipe out every civil consequence of the act. Civil liability is extinguished by causes recognized in civil law, so a prescribed criminal action may leave room for a viable civil action when the applicable civil rules and procedural posture allow it.
Basic distinctions
| Point of comparison | Prescription of crime | Prescription of penalty |
|---|---|---|
| Stage | Before conviction by final judgment | After conviction by final judgment |
| Right lost by the State | Right to prosecute and secure conviction | Right to execute the penalty imposed |
| Starting point | Generally from discovery of the offense by the offended party, authorities, or their agents under the RPC; for special laws, the governing statute may start from commission or discovery | From the date the convict evades service of sentence |
| Controlling measure | The penalty prescribed by law for the offense, ordinarily the highest penalty imposable for the offense charged | The penalty actually imposed by final sentence |
| Legal consequence | The accused can no longer be criminally prosecuted for that offense | The convict can no longer be compelled to serve that prescribed penalty |
Nature of prescription
Prescription in criminal law is created by statute. Courts do not invent prescriptive periods by analogy, and parties cannot lengthen or shorten them by agreement. The controlling law is the statute that governs the offense or penalty involved.
Because prescription extinguishes criminal liability, it may be considered when the facts showing prescription are apparent from the charge, the record, or admitted matters. It may be invoked through a motion to quash, motion to dismiss, or equivalent procedural remedy, and it may also defeat conviction when the evidence shows that the criminal action was already time-barred.
Prescription is construed with attention to both the liberty of the accused and the public interest in prosecution. The accused should not suffer prosecution after the State slept on its right for the period fixed by law, but the accused should not benefit from delay that the accused caused, procured, or unjustifiably prolonged.
Prescription of crimes under the Revised Penal Code
Prescription of crimes applies before the State obtains a final conviction. The ordinary RPC periods are tied to the gravity of the penalty prescribed by law for the felony, not to the penalty that a court might later impose after considering modifying circumstances.
Felonies punishable by death, reclusion perpetua, or reclusion temporal prescribe in twenty years. Other afflictive felonies prescribe in fifteen years. Correctional felonies prescribe in ten years, except arresto mayor, which prescribes in five years. Libel and similar offenses prescribe in one year; oral defamation and slander by deed prescribe in six months; light offenses prescribe in two months.
When the law prescribes a compound, complex, or alternative penalty, the period is generally determined by the highest penalty attached by law to the offense, because prescription of the crime is assessed before trial and before individualized sentencing. When the prescribed penalty is a fine, the fine is classified according to its statutory character as afflictive, correctional, or light for purposes of fixing the prescriptive period.
The period ordinarily begins to run only when the offense is discovered by the offended party, the authorities, or their agents. This rule matters most for concealed, falsified, fraudulent, or secretly committed offenses, where commission and discovery may occur on different dates.
For instantaneous offenses, prescription is reckoned from the legally relevant point of commission or discovery. For continuing offenses, the period does not sensibly run from the first act alone; it is reckoned with regard to the continued unlawful condition or the last material act necessary to the offense.
Interruption and renewed running
The filing of the proper complaint or information interrupts the running of prescription. For offenses requiring preliminary investigation, jurisprudence treats the filing of the complaint with the proper prosecutorial office for preliminary investigation as an institution of proceedings that interrupts prescription, because that filing activates the State's machinery for determining whether the accused should be charged in court.
Once interrupted, prescription does not continue to run while the criminal proceeding is pending in a manner chargeable to the prosecution process. If the proceeding terminates without conviction or acquittal, or if it is unjustifiably stopped for a reason not imputable to the accused, the period begins to run again.
Delay attributable to the accused does not aid prescription. A person who secures postponements, evades proceedings, or causes suspension of the case cannot ordinarily count that delay as State inaction for purposes of extinguishing criminal liability.
Under the RPC, the prescriptive period does not run while the offender is absent from the Philippines. This rule prevents an offender from defeating prosecution by leaving the jurisdiction during the period when the State could otherwise proceed.
Special laws and Act No. 3326
Offenses punished by special laws are governed first by the prescriptive period stated in the special law itself. If the special law is silent, Act No. 3326 supplies the general rule for prescription of offenses punished by special acts and by municipal ordinances.
Act No. 3326 classifies special-law offenses principally by the duration of imprisonment imposed by the special law, with separate treatment for offenses punishable only by fine or very short imprisonment and for ordinance violations. Its function is gap-filling: it does not displace a later or more specific prescriptive period expressly provided by the statute that creates the offense.
| Offense under special law or ordinance | General prescriptive period |
|---|---|
| Punished only by fine, or by imprisonment not exceeding one month, or both | One year |
| Punished by imprisonment for more than one month but less than two years | Four years |
| Punished by imprisonment for two years or more but less than six years | Eight years |
| Punished by imprisonment for six years or more | Twelve years, unless a different controlling law applies |
| Violation of municipal ordinances | Two months |
For special-law offenses, the period generally begins from commission of the violation. If the violation was not known at the time of commission, the period begins from discovery and the institution of proceedings for investigation and punishment, consistent with the statutory policy that concealed violations should not prescribe before reasonable discovery.
Proceedings that validly call the offender to account interrupt prescription under Act No. 3326. The phrase is understood functionally, so the institution of the proper preliminary investigation or prosecution proceeding may interrupt the period when that is the legally required first step toward punishment.
Prescription of penalties
Prescription of penalties assumes a final judgment of conviction. Before finality, the issue remains prosecution and adjudication; after finality, the issue becomes execution of the penalty imposed.
The period for prescription of penalties is measured by the penalty actually imposed in the final sentence. Death and reclusion perpetua prescribe in twenty years; other afflictive penalties prescribe in fifteen years; correctional penalties prescribe in ten years, except arresto mayor, which prescribes in five years; light penalties prescribe in one year.
The period begins to run from the date the convict evades service of sentence. Evasion means that the convict was legally bound to serve the sentence and, by escape, flight, failure to submit, or comparable conduct, avoided its execution.
The running of prescription of penalty is interrupted when the convict gives himself up, is captured, goes to a foreign country with which the Philippines has no extradition treaty, or commits another crime before the period expires. Interruption reflects the rule that prescription of penalty is not a reward for continuing defiance of lawful punishment.
If the convict is serving the sentence, prescription of the penalty is not running, because the State is already enforcing the judgment. If service is lawfully suspended, deferred, or modified by a competent authority, the analysis depends on the legal effect of that order and whether there is evasion in the criminal-law sense.
Effects of prescription
When the crime has prescribed, the court should not proceed to convict, because the State's penal claim has expired. The dismissal rests on extinction of criminal liability, not on a declaration that the accused necessarily did not commit the acts alleged.
When the penalty has prescribed, the conviction remains a historical fact, but the State may no longer enforce the prescribed penalty. Prescription of penalty therefore concerns execution, not the validity of the final judgment itself.
Prescription does not legalize the act, erase all records, or create immunity for distinct offenses arising from different acts. It bars only the criminal liability covered by the prescriptive period that has fully run under the controlling law.
Prescription also does not defeat prosecution for an offense with a longer prescriptive period merely because another possible offense based on related facts has prescribed. The proper inquiry is the offense actually charged or legally chargeable, the penalty attached by the governing law, the date when prescription began, and the events that interrupted or suspended the period.
Relationship to total extinction of criminal liability
Prescription is a mode of total extinction because, once complete, it leaves no remaining criminal liability for the prescribed crime or prescribed penalty. It differs from service of sentence, pardon, or amnesty because it operates through the lapse of time under law rather than through execution of punishment or an act of executive or sovereign grace.
For the accused, prescription is a complete defense to the penal action or execution covered by it. For the State, prescription is a statutory boundary: criminal law punishes wrongdoing, but only within the periods and conditions that the law itself fixes.