Article 148 of the Revised Penal Code: Direct assaults

In Gelig v. People (2010), the Supreme Court said direct assault "may be committed in two ways":

1. For the aims of rebellion or sedition. Without a public uprising, a person uses force or intimidation to reach any of the purposes listed in the definitions of rebellion and sedition.
2. Against authority. Without a public uprising, a person attacks, uses force, or seriously intimidates or resists a person in authority or an agent, while that person is performing official duties or on the occasion of that performance.

The second way is the one most cases are about.

In Balsamo v. People (2023), the Supreme Court listed five elements for the second way:

• the offender attacks, uses force, makes a serious intimidation or makes a serious resistance;
• the person assaulted is a person in authority or an agent;
• at that time the person was performing official duties, or was assaulted because of past performance of official duties;
• the offender knows that the one assaulted is a person in authority or an agent exercising official duties;
• there is no public uprising.

So an attack on a police officer over a purely private quarrel, with no link to his duties, may not fit the third element. The courts decide each element on the evidence.

Article 152 gives the answer. It has no separate page yet, so its text is quoted here:

In short:

Section 388 of the Local Government Code says the punong barangay, the sangguniang barangay members and the members of the lupong tagapamayapa "shall be deemed as persons in authority in their jurisdictions" for purposes of the Revised Penal Code.

When the force used against an agent is not serious. In Mallari v. People (2020), the Supreme Court said: "To be considered as direct assault, the laying of hands or the use of physical force against the agent of a person in authority must be serious." Force that is not dangerous, grave or severe is resistance and disobedience under Article 151, which has a lighter penalty.

In Balsamo v. People (2023), a man who punched a police officer in the chest and shut a gate on the officer's fingers was charged with direct assault. The Court held that the force involved in direct assault "must be serious or more than a sudden blow, slapping, or punching", and found him guilty only of resistance to an agent of a person in authority. The Court added that direct assault necessarily includes resistance or disobedience, so a person charged with direct assault can be convicted of resistance.

Yes, when Articles 148 and 151 are applied. In Gelig v. People (2010), a parent slapped and pushed a public school teacher inside the school. The Court of Appeals had treated the teacher as a private individual because she fought back. The Supreme Court disagreed: the teacher was attending to her official functions as a teacher when the attack began, and the parent was convicted of direct assault.

Republic Act No. 10951 (2017) raised the fines in the Revised Penal Code, including those in Article 148. Decisions on facts that happened before that law, such as Gelig, Mallari and Balsamo, show the older and much smaller fines. Those amounts were applied to old facts and are not today's fines.