Question & AnswerQ&A (PRESIDENTIAL DECREE NO. 1744)
Presidential Decree No. 1744 amends Article 320 of the Revised Penal Code, specifically provisions relating to destructive arson and imposes penalties including death for certain cases of arson.
The penalty is reclusion temporal in its maximum period to death.
The covered buildings include residential houses, public buildings, markets, hotels, commercial establishments, buildings where people gather for definite purposes (such as government offices, places of worship, hotels, motels, terminals), trains, locomotives, ships, vessels, airships, airplanes, factories, warehouses, and public utility installations.
No. The offender's knowledge of persons in the building or whether the building is inhabited or not does not affect the imposition of the penalty.
The penalty is death, irrespective of whether the purpose is merely to burn or destroy the building or if the burning is an overt act in the commission of another violation of law.
Arsenals, shipyards, military powder or fireworks factories, ordnance storehouses, government archives, general museums, and in inhabited places, factories or storehouses of inflammable or explosive materials.
If death or injury results, or valuable documents, equipment, machineries, apparatus, or other valuable properties are destroyed, the mandatory penalty of death shall be imposed.
Provisions of Articles 320, 321, and 322 of the Revised Penal Code which are inconsistent with PD No. 1744 are repealed.
The decree took effect immediately upon its promulgation on November 11, 1980.
It means the penalty ranges from reclusion temporal (a prison term of 12 years and 1 day to 20 years) up to the imposition of the death penalty, depending on the severity and circumstances of the arson committed.