Introduction

Should life be valued above honor, or should honor be valued above life?
The predominantly Catholic Filipino culture upholds life as a gift from God, which only
He could take away. It is a universal norm that humans are not created to control the life of
another and that it cannot be taken away by anybody. The right to life is one of the basic
rights that the Constitution protects.
On the other hand, there are laws addressing the defense of one's honor. Under such
laws, husbands or family members are exempted from criminal liability for the murders or
other forms of violence they commit against their wives, daughters or sisters, and their
seducers. The rationale is that womens unacceptable sexual behavior besmirches family
honor.
Article 247 of the Revised Penal Code exhibits a similar character to these defense of
honor laws. It states that:
Any legally married person who having surprised his spouse in the act of committing sexual
intercourse with another person, shall kill any of them or both of them in the act or immediately
thereafter, or shall inflict upon them any serious physical injury, shall suffer the penalty of
destierro.If he shall inflict upon them physical injuries of any other kind, he shall be exempt
from punishment.
These rules shall be applicable, under the same circumstances, to parents with respect to their
daughters under eighteen years of age, and their seducer, while the daughters are living with
their parents.
Any person who shall promote or facilitate the prostitution of his wife or daughter, or shall
otherwise have consented to the infidelity of the other spouse shall not be entitled to the
benefits of this article.

The enactment of RA 9346 in 2006 suspended death penalty while Article 247
practically penalizes with death a spouse or daughter who is caught in the act of committing
sexual intercourse. Curiously, a person guilty of killing or inflicting serious physical harm on
his spouse, whom he caught having intercourse with another person, only receives a penalty
of destierro. Compared with the penalties for parricide or serious physical injuries, destierro
restrains the convict from entering court-designated places or being near a certain radius of
an area. Such prohibition is not so much as a penalty but a protection to the convict from the
vendetta of the deceased's relatives.
Through this study, the authors aim to convince the reader why Article 247 should be
repealed and treated as a possible mitigating circumstance. The first recommendation is
aligned with the Constitutional provision, No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or
property without due process to law, which clearly rejects the policy of allowing people to
take the law into their own hands. Instead of absolute exemption, the second
recommendation seeks to allow the imposition of a lesser penalty.
Article 247 gives a different angle to the way the law punishes crimes of

passion. While passion can be considered as a mitigating circumstance which could lower the
penalty by one degree under other circumstances, Article 247 provides a different
appreciation of passion as it provides for the absolution of the convicted person.

Statement of the Problem

Article 247 of the Revised Penal Code allows the offender to kill a spouse or daughter
who is caught in the act of committing sexual intercourse. Does Article 247 contradict the
essence of prohibiting death penalty?