Study Smart Law · Torni Dors · May batas pala diyan?
The Revised Penal Code Has a Crime Called a Charivari
Article 155, Alarms and Scandals · Act No. 3815, enacted 8 December 1930, in force since 1 January 1932 · as amended by Republic Act No. 10951, Sec. 19, approved 29 August 2017
HOW TO READ ARTICLE 155.
No case construing this article was located for this post, so what follows is a reading of the statutory text, not doctrine. Article 155 punishes four distinct acts of public disturbance under a single light penalty. Its defining feature is that every paragraph carries its own limiting words — par. 1’s “calculated to cause alarm or danger,” par. 2’s “offensive to another or prejudicial to public tranquility,” par. 3’s “shall disturb the public peace,” and par. 4’s express subordination to Art. 153. On the text, the article cannot be made out on the bare description of conduct — the qualifier is what the statute makes decisive. RA 10951 raised the fine two hundredfold while re-enacting the same conduct, and without moving the offense in the hierarchy.
Somewhere in Title Three of the Revised Penal Code — Crimes Against Public Order, Chapter Five, Public Disorders — between the tumults and the delivery of prisoners from jail, sits a crime called a charivari. It has been there since the Code took effect on 1 January 1932. It is still there now.
The Code never says what one is.
The text, paragraph by paragraph
Art. 155, as amended — the opening clause
“The penalty of arresto menor or a fine not exceeding Forty thousand pesos (₱40,000) shall be imposed upon:”
| Par. |
What the statute says |
The limiting words |
| 1 |
“Any person who within any town or public place, shall discharge any firearm, rocket, firecracker, or other explosives calculated to cause alarm or danger” |
calculated to cause alarm or danger |
| 2 |
“Any person who shall instigate or take an active part in any charivari or other disorderly meeting offensive to another or prejudicial to public tranquility” |
offensive OR prejudicial |
| 3 |
“Any person who, while wandering about at night or while engaged in any other nocturnal amusements, shall disturb the public peace” |
shall disturb the public peace |
| 4 |
“Any person who, while intoxicated or otherwise, shall cause any disturbance or scandal in public places: Provided, That the circumstances of the case shall not make the provisions of article 153 applicable” |
residual to Art. 153 |
Three drafting points worth arguing. (1) Par. 1’s closing qualifier, “calculated to cause alarm or danger,” is not surplusage — and whether it reaches back across the whole enumeration or attaches only to “other explosives” is not resolved by the Code’s own text. Check the commentaries before relying on either reading, and argue it rather than assuming it. (2) Par. 2’s qualifier is disjunctive: offensive to another or prejudicial to public tranquility. Either suffices. (3) Par. 4 says “intoxicated or otherwise” — it is not a drunkenness offense, and its proviso must travel with any quotation of it.
In ordinary usage a charivari is a mock serenade: a crowd gathering outside somebody’s house and raising a deliberate din with pots, pans, kettles and horns, historically to shame or mock whoever lived there. The French spelling is the one the Code uses. The anglicized form is shivaree.
Read this before you cite a definition. No Supreme Court decision construing “charivari” was located in the research for this post, and the Code supplies no definition of the word anywhere. What you have just read is ordinary usage, not a judicial construction. If you need a definition with authority behind it, cite a named commentary (Reyes; Boado) with the page and attribute it as a commentator’s view — not to the Court, and not to the Code.
Two arguments follow from the Code’s silence, and both are worth having ready. They are readings of the text, not settled law.
First, the phrase “or other disorderly meeting” does real work. Even where a gathering is not a charivari in the strict sense, par. 2 still reaches it if it is a disorderly meeting answering the qualifier. Second, on the ordinary canons — noscitur a sociis, and ejusdem generis as to the general words that follow — the charivari is the first-named member of a genus, so the ordinary meaning of the word informs what kind of disorderly meeting the paragraph is aimed at. The undefined word is not decorative; it sets the register.
The penalty, and the jump that changed nothing
1932 – 2017
Not exceeding ₱200
“The penalty of arresto menor or fine not exceeding 200 pesos” — note the original carries no article before “fine.”
From 29 August 2017
Not exceeding ₱40,000
Arresto menor or a fine not exceeding forty thousand pesos — RA 10951, Sec. 19, which re-enacted all four paragraphs and raised only the fine.
The penalty is alternative, not cumulative: the statute says arresto menor or a fine. And arresto menor under Art. 27 runs from one day to thirty days — a range, not “a month.”
Why a two-hundredfold increase is not an upgrade
The instinct is to read the jump as Congress treating the offense more seriously. It did not, because RA 10951 moved the classification thresholds in the same Act:
- Art. 9, amended by RA 10951 Sec. 1 — light felonies are those for which the penalty is arresto menor or a fine not exceeding ₱40,000, or both.
- Art. 26, amended by RA 10951 Sec. 2 — a fine is afflictive “if it exceeds” ₱1,200,000; correctional if it does not exceed ₱1,200,000 “but is not less than” ₱40,000; and light “if it be less than” ₱40,000.
So Art. 155 is still a light felony. The fine and the ceiling moved together, and the offense did not shift in the hierarchy at all.
The edge, because someone will ask. Art. 155’s ceiling is a fine “not exceeding” ₱40,000, which includes exactly ₱40,000 — but under Art. 26 a fine of exactly ₱40,000 is “not less than” ₱40,000, and so is a correctional fine. The two provisions do different work: Art. 9 classifies the felony by the penalty attached to it, and the penalty attached here is a fine not exceeding ₱40,000. Art. 26 classifies a fine as a penalty. Worth flagging rather than pretending the boundary is clean.
And that classification has a consequence
Art. 7
“Light felonies are punishable only when they have been consummated” — “with the exception of those committed against persons or property.”
Article 155 sits in Title Three — Crimes Against Public Order. Not against persons, not against property. (Title Six is Crimes Against Public Morals — that is where Art. 200 lives, which is worth keeping straight when you set the two side by side.) The exception does not apply, so attempted and frustrated violations of Art. 155 are not punishable. There is no attempted charivari.
One word on retroactivity
RA 10951, Sec. 100, gives the Act retroactive effect to the extent favorable to the accused, reaching even persons serving sentence by final judgment. On Art. 155 the amendment raised the fine, so it is not favorable and the clause does no work here. It matters a great deal elsewhere in RA 10951, where thresholds moved in the accused’s favor.
But the corollary is the part that helps someone. Precisely because the increase is unfavorable, the ₱40,000 ceiling cannot be applied to conduct committed before 29 August 2017 — such a case is still governed by the ₱200 maximum. The hooks are Art. 22 of the Code and the constitutional bar on ex post facto laws; neither was separately verified for this post, so check them before relying on this in a filing.
Four noisy offenses, four different penalties
| Article |
Offense |
Penalty |
| Art. 287 |
Light coercions; unjust vexation in the second paragraph |
Arresto menor, or a fine of ₱1,000 to ₱40,000, or both (RA 10951, Sec. 73) |
| Art. 155 |
Alarms and scandals — the four paragraphs above |
Arresto menor or a fine not exceeding ₱40,000 |
| Art. 200 |
Grave scandal — offending against decency or good customs by any highly scandalous conduct not expressly falling within any other article of the Code |
Arresto mayor and public censure — conjunctive, and no fine at all |
Art. 153
par. 1 only |
Tumults and other disturbances of public order. Par. 1 reaches one who causes any serious disturbance in a public place, office or establishment, or interrupts a public performance, function, gathering or peaceful meeting. Par. 3 defines a disturbance as tumultuous when caused by more than three persons who are armed or provided with means of violence. The article has further paragraphs this table does not cover — outcries tending to incite rebellion or sedition, and placards or emblems provoking disorder; and burying with pomp a person legally executed, contrary to the last clause of Art. 85. |
Arresto mayor in its medium period to prisión correccional in its minimum period and a fine not exceeding ₱200,000 (RA 10951, Sec. 17); the penalty next higher in degree where the disturbance is tumultuous |
Two traps in that table. Art. 200 carries no fine — do not attach a peso figure to grave scandal. And Art. 200 is expressly residual: it reaches highly scandalous conduct “not expressly falling within any other article of this Code,” so where Art. 155(4) fits the facts, Art. 200 does not.
The practical sorting question is gravity and character. A serious disturbance, or one of a tumultuous character, is Art. 153 — and par. 4 of Art. 155 expressly stands aside for it. Conduct that is highly scandalous, offends decency or good customs, and that no other article reaches, is Art. 200. Everything in between — the noise, the firecracker, the disorderly gathering, the public scene — is Art. 155, provided the relevant paragraph’s own qualifier is met. That proviso is not decoration; it is the whole of the first section above.
Questions people actually ask
Q
Firecrackers at New Year?
Not automatically. Par. 1 needs a discharge within a town or public place and carries the qualifier “calculated to cause alarm or danger.” Separate regulatory regimes govern firecrackers and are not treated here.
Q
Is attending enough?
Par. 2 reaches one who instigates or takes an active part. Those words are narrower than mere presence.
Q
Attempted Art. 155?
No. It is a light felony and a crime against public order, so Art. 7 confines liability to the consummated offense.
Q
Prison and fine together?
The statute reads arresto menor or a fine — alternative on its face. Contrast Art. 287, where RA 10951 expressly allows both.
Q
Does retroactivity help?
Not here. RA 10951 Sec. 100 applies only to the extent favorable, and this amendment raised the fine rather than lowering it.
Q
Noisy neighbors?
Possibly par. 3 or par. 4 — but par. 3 needs the offender to be wandering about at night or at a nocturnal amusement, disturbing the public peace, not one neighbor. Noise is commonly routed through local ordinances and the barangay — not researched here.
How to cite it. “Revised Penal Code, Art. 155, as amended by Republic Act No. 10951 (2017),” then the paragraph. Flag the amendment whenever you quote the penalty — the pre-2017 figure of ₱200 is still printed in a great many sources online.
Checks before relying on this. Confirm the amendment history of Art. 155 in both directions — whether anything after RA 10951 has touched it, and whether anything before it did. Neither was established here, because web search was unavailable, so this post never says Art. 155 was amended “once.” Confirm the Art. 9, 26, 27, 153, 200 and 287 figures against the Official Gazette; and before asserting any judicial construction of “charivari” or of par. 1’s qualifier, run a citator search. None was possible here, and the absence of a located case is not proof that none exists.
Legal information, not legal advice. Whether particular conduct falls within a paragraph of Art. 155, or instead within Art. 153, 200 or 287, is fact-specific. Anyone facing a live complaint should consult counsel.
Sources. Act No. 3815, the Revised Penal Code, Arts. 7, 9, 26, 27, 153, 155, 200 and 287; Republic Act No. 10951 (29 August 2017), Secs. 1, 2, 17, 19, 73 and 100.
Study Smart Law · Torni Dors, “May batas pala diyan?” · Episode 13
No comments:
Post a Comment