(1) Grave Scandal (Art 200)
(2) Immoral doctrines, obscene publications and exhibitions (Art 201)
(3) Vagrancy and prostitution (Art 202)
A. Chapter I - Gambling and Betting
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1. Article 195 - What Acts Are Punishable in Gambling
Acts punished:
(1) Taking part directly or indirectly in – (a) any game of monte, jueteng, or any
other form of lottery, policy, banking, or percentage game, dog races, or any other game or scheme the results of which depend wholly or chiefly upon chance or hazard; or wherein wagers consisting of money, articles of value, or representative of value are made; or (b) the exploitation or use of any other mechanical invention or contrivance to determine by chance the loser or winner of money or any object or representative of value;
(2) Knowingly permitting any form of gambling to be carried on in any place owned or controlled by the offender;
(3) Being maintainer, conductor, or banker in a game of jueteng or similar game;
(4) Knowingly and without lawful purpose possessing lottery list, paper, or other matter containing letters, figures, signs or symbol which pertain to or are in any manner used in the game of jueteng or any similar game.
The provisions of Art 195-199, PD 483 and 449 are repealed insofar as they are inconsistent with PD 1602, which provides for stiffer penalties for violation of Gambling Laws.
Gambling: any game of chance or scheme, whether upon chance or skill, wherein wagers consisting of money, articles or value or representative or value are at stake or made.
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Spectators are not liable in gambling, because they do not take part directly or indirectly.
Before, the Revised Penal Code considered the skill of the player in classifying whether a game is gambling or not. But under the new gambling law, the skill of the players is immaterial.
Even sports contents like boxing, would be gambling insofar as those who are betting therein are concerned.
Lottery
Definition: It is a scheme for the distribution of prizes by chance among persons who have paid or agreed to pay, a valuable consideration for the chance to obtain a prize.
Elements:
(1) Consideration (2) Chance
(3) Prize or some advantage or inequality in amount or value which is in the nature of a prize
There is no lottery when the person gets the full value for his money.
Illustration: A package of cigarette sold at P0.30 each includes a coupon which may allow the buyer to win a gold watch. This is not lottery. Winning the watch is only a bonus.
Criteria to determine if lottery is already gambling:
(1) If the public is made to pay not only for the merchandise that he is buying, but also for the chance to win a prize out of the lottery.
(2) Public is made to pay a higher price.
(3) If the merchandise is not saleable because of its inferior quality, so that the public actually does not buy them, but with the lottery the public starts patronizing such merchandise.
(4) In effect, the public is paying for the lottery and not for the merchandise, and therefore the lottery is a gambling game.
(5) Public is not made to pay a higher price.
The maintainer or conductor in a gambling game is likewise punished.
Maintainer: A person who sets up and furnishes the means with which to carry on the gambling game or scheme.
Conductor: A person who manages or carries on the gambling game or scheme.
To be prosecuted for possessing a jueteng list, proof that the game took place or is about to take place is not necessary.
2. Article 196 - Importation, Sale and Possession of Lottery Tickets or Advertisements
Acts punished:
(1) Importing into the Philippines from any foreign place or port any lottery ticket or advertisement; or
(2) Selling or distributing the same in connivance with the importer;
(3) Possessing, knowingly and with intent to use them, lottery tickets or advertisements; or (4) Selling or distributing the same without
connivance with the importer of the same.
[Reyes]
The possession of any lottery ticket or advertisement is prima facie evidence of intent to sell, distribute or use the same in the Philippines.
3. Article 197 – Betting in Sports contents
This article (Art. 197) has been repealed by Presidential Decree No. 483 (Betting, Game-fixing or Point-shaving and Machinations in Sport Contests)
Sec 2. Betting, game-fixing, point-shaving or game machination unlawful. – Game-fixing, point-shaving, game machination, as defined in the preceding section, in connection with the games of basketball, volleyball, softball, baseball; chess, boxing bouts, jai-alia, sipa, pelota and all other sports contests, games or races; as well as betting therein except as may be authorized by law, is hereby declared unlawful.
Betting: betting money or any object or article of value or representative of value upon the result of any game, races and other sport contests.
Game-fixing: any arrangement, combinations, scheme or agreement by which the result of any game, races or sport contests shall be predicated and/or known other than on the basis of the honest playing skill or ability of the players or participants.
Point-shaving: any such arrangement, combination, scheme or agreement by which the skill of ability of any player or participant in a game, races or sports contests to make points or scores shall be limited deliberately in order to influence the result thereof in favor one or the other team, player or participant therein.
Game machinations: any other fraudulent, deceitful, unfair or dishonest means, methods, manner or practice employed for the purpose of influencing the result of any game, races or sports contest.
4. Article 198 - Illegal Betting on
Horse Race
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Acts punished:
(1) Betting on horse races during periods not allowed by law;
(2) Maintaining or employing a totalizer or other device or scheme for betting on races or realizing profit therefrom during the periods not allowed by law. [Reyes]
Totalizer: a machine for registering and indicating the number and nature of bets made on horse races.
Maintaining or employing a totalizer aggravates the liability of offenders.
When horse races are not allowed:
(1) July 4 (Republic Act No. 137);
(2) December 30 (Republic Act No. 229);
(3) Any registration or voting days (Republic Act No. 180, Revised Election Code); and (4) Holy Thursday and Good Friday (Republic
Act No. 946).
Any race held on the same day and at the same place shall be held punishable as a separate offense.
5. Article 199 (as amended by PD 449)
Acts Punished:
(1) Any person who, directly or indirectly, participates in cockfights by betting money or other valuable things in a day other than those permitted by law.
(2) Any person, who, directly or indirectly, organizes cockfights at which bets are made in a day other than those permitted by law.
(3) Any person, directly or indirectly, participates in cockfights, by betting money or other valuable things at a place other than a licensed cockpit.
(4) Any person, who, directly or indirectly, organizes cockfights at which bets are made at a place other than a licensed cockpit.
(5) Owner, manager, or lessee of the cockpit who shall permit gambling of any kind on the premises of the cockpit or place of cockfighting during cockfights.
Cockfighting allowed on the following dates:
(1) Sundays (2) Legal holidays
(3) During local fiestas for not more than three days
(4) During provincial, municipal, city, industrial, agricultural fairs, carnivals, or exposition not more than three days Cockfighting not allowed on:
(1) Rizal Day (December 30) (2) Independence Day (June 12) (3) National Heroes Day (November 30) (4) Holy Thursday
(5) Good Friday
(6) Election or Referendum Day
(7) Registration days for referendums and elections
Only municipal and city mayors are allowed to issue licenses for such.
This decree does not punish a person attending as a spectator in a cockfight. To be liable, he must participate as a bettor.
B. Chapter II. Offenses against Decency and Good Customs 0.
1. Article 200 - Grave Scandal
Elements:
(1) Offender performs an act or acts;
(2) Such act or acts be highly scandalous as offending against decency or good customs;
(3) The highly scandalous conduct is not expressly falling within any other article of this Code; and
(4) The act or acts complained of be committed in a public place or within the public knowledge or view. (Reyes)
Decency: means proprietary of conduct; proper observance of the requirements of modesty, good taste, etc.
Customs: established usage, social conventions carried on by tradition and enforced by social disapproval of any violation thereof.
Grave Scandal: consists of acts which are offensive to decency and good customs which, having committed publicly, have given rise to public scandal to persons who have accidentally witnessed the same.
The acts must be performed in a public place or within the public knowledge or view. If it is committed in a private place, the crime of grave scandal is not committed.
In conducts involving lasciviousness, it is grave scandal only where there is mutual consent. (Boado, Comprehensive Reviewer in Criminal Law)
Any act which is notoriously offensive to decency may bring about criminal liability for the crime of grave scandal, Provided such act does not constitute some other crime under the Revised Penal Code.
Grave scandal is a crime of last resort.
2. Article 201 - Immoral Doctrines, Obscene Publications and Exhibitions and Indecent Shows
Acts punished (as amended by PD No. 960, 969) (1) Those who shall publicly expound or
proclaim doctrines openly contrary to public morals;
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(2) The authors of obscene literature, published with their knowledge in any form, (3) The editors publishing such literature;
(4) The owners/operators of the establishment selling the same;
(5) Those who, in theaters, fairs, cinematographs, or any other place, exhibit indecent or immoral plays, scenes, acts, or shows,
it being understood that the obscene literature or indecent or immoral plays, scenes, acts or shows, whether live or in film, which are proscribed by virtue hereof, shall include those which:
(a) glorify criminals or condone crimes;
(b) serve no other purpose but to satisfy the market for violence, lust or pornography;
(c) offend any race, or religion;
(d) tend to abet traffic in and use of prohibited drugs; and
(e) are contrary to law, public order, morals, good customs, established policies, lawful orders, decrees and edicts
(6) Those who shall sell, give away or exhibit films, prints, engravings, sculpture or literature which are offensive to morals.
MORALS: imply conformity with the generally accepted standards of goodness or rightness in conduct or character, sometimes, specifically, to sexual conduct.
Offense in any of the forms mentioned in the article is committed only when there is publicity
The test of obscenity:
(1) The test is objective.
(2) It is more on the effect upon the viewer and not alone on the conduct of the performer.
(3) If the material has the tendency to deprave and corrupt the mind of the viewer then the same is obscene and where such obscenity is made publicly, criminal liability arises.
(4) As long as the pornographic matter or exhibition is made privately, there is no crime committed under the Revised Penal Code because what is protected is the morality of the public in general.
Jurisprudence:
Postcards of Philippine inhabitants in native attire were not obscene because the aggregate judgment of the community, and the moral sense of the people were not shocked by those pictures. They were not offensive to chastity but merely depicted persons as they actually lived. [People v Kottinger (1923)]
The reaction of the public during the performance of a dance by one who had nothing to cover herself with, except nylon patches over her breasts and too
abbreviated pair of nylon panties to interrupt her stark nakedness should be made the gauge in the determination of whether the dance or exhibition was indecent or immoral. [People v Aparici (1955)]
An actual exhibition of the sexual act can have no redeeming feature—no room for art. Therefore, it is a clear and unmitigated obscenity. [People v Padan (1957)]
3. Article 202 - Vagrancy and Prostitution
Persons Liable:
(1) Any person having no apparent means of subsistence, who has the physical ability to work and who neglects to apply himself or herself to some lawful calling;
(2) Any person found loitering about public or semi-public buildings or places or trampling or wandering about the country or the streets without visible means of support;
(3) Any idle or dissolute person who lodges in houses of ill fame; ruffians or pimps and those who habitually associate with prostitutes;
(4) Any person who, not being included in the provisions of other articles of this Code, shall be found loitering in any inhabited or uninhabited place belonging to another without any lawful or justifiable purpose;
and (5) Prostitutes
Prostitutes: women who, for money or profit habitually indulge in sexual intercourse or lascivious conduct
Dissolute: lax, unrestrained, immoral Ruffian: brutal, violent, lawless persons
Pimp: One who provides gratification for the lust of others
Even millionaires or one who has more than enough for his livelihood can commit vagrancy by habitually associating with prostitutes, pimps, ruffians, or by habitually lodging in houses of ill-repute. The purpose of the law is not simply to punish a person because he has no means of livelihood; it is to prevent further criminality.
Any person found wandering in an estate belonging to another whether public or private without any lawful purpose also commits vagrancy, unless his acts constitutes some other crime in the Revised Penal Code.
The term prostitution is applicable to a woman who for profit or money habitually engages in sexual or lascivious conduct.
A man, if he engages in the same conduct – sex for money – is not a prostitute, but a vagrant.
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In law, the mere indulging in lascivious conduct habitually because of money or gain would amount to prostitution, even if there is no sexual intercourse. Virginity is not a defense.
Habituality is the controlling factor; it has to be more than one time.
There cannot be prostitution by conspiracy. One who conspires with a woman in the prostitution business like pimps, taxi drivers or solicitors of clients are guilty of the crime under Article 341 for white slavery.
See Special Law: PD 1563 (Mendicancy Law of 1978) Under the Mendicancy Law of 1978 (PD 1563),
(1) one who has no visible and legal means of support, or lawful employment
(2) and who is physically able to work but neglects to apply himself to some lawful calling
(3) and instead uses begging as a means of living,
(4) is a mendicant.
Any person who abets mendicancy by giving alms directly to mendicants, exploited infants and minors on public roads, sidewalks, parks and bridges shall be punished by a fine.
See Special Law: RA 9208 (Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act)
Note Sec. 17: Persons trafficked (including prostitutes) are exempt from criminal liability.
Note also: Under RA 9208, persons who hire trafficked persons are criminally liable. Not so in Art 202 RPC.