Article 139 - Sedition; How committed
The crime of sedition is committed by persons who rise publicly and tumultuously in order to
attain by force, intimidation, or by other means outside of legal methods, any of the following
objects:
1. To prevent the promulgation or execution of any law or the holding of any popular
election;
2. To prevent the National Government, or any provincial or municipal government or
any public p officer thereof from freely exercising functions, ог prevent the execution
of any administrative order; its or his
3. To inflict any act of hate or revenge upon the person or property of any public officer
or employee;
4. To commit, for any political or social end, any act of hate or revenge against private
persons or any social class; and
5. To despoil, for any political or social end, any person, municipality or province, or the
National Government (or the Government of the United States), of all its property or
any part thereof.
Elements:
(1) The offenders rise publicly and tumultuously;
"rising publicly and tumultuously" rising publicly means the gathering must be made public
(cannot be done in secret); tumultuous means loud, emotional, involving violence, confusion
or disorder
(2) The offenders employ force, intimidation, or other means outside of legal methods;
Sedition is a crime of dissent or protest by means outside of the legal methods. It is done in
excess of the legal means authorized under the freedoms of expression and assembly
clauses of the Constitution. (Boado, p. 449)
(3) The offenders employ any of those means to attain any of the following objects or
purposes:
● To prevent the promulgation or execution of any law or the holding of any popular
election; Example: Candidate X, who feared that he was going to lose in his
re-election bid, barricaded the school and threatened the voters to prevent them from
casting their votes.
● To prevent the Nat'l Gov't, or any provincial or municipal gov't, or any public officer
thereof from freely exercising its or his functions, or prevent the execution of any
administrative order; Example: Mayor X, who lost in his re-election bid, barricaded
the municipal hall to prevent the new Mayor from exercising his administrative and
public functions.
● To inflict any act of hate or revenge upon the person or property of any public officer
or employee; Example: Candidate X, together with his supporters, set fire to the car
of his political rival who defeated him in the last election.
● To commit, for any political or social end, any act of hate or revenge against private
persons or any social class; Example: X and 100 of his companions, all of whom
were laborers, banded together and physically assaulted their employers to protest
against their abusive and unjust labor practices and their continued oppression of the
poor people working under them.
● To despoil, for any political or social end, any person, municipality or province, or the
Nat'l Gov't of all its property or any part thereof. (Reyes, RPC, pp. 104-105) *"to
despoil" means to steal or to violently remove; to plunder. Example: X and 100 of his
companions, all of whom were laborers, banded together and ransacked the houses
of their respective employers and stole all the jewelry they could find in order to get
what is "due" them as employees and to protest against their abusive and unjust
labor practices.
Distinctions between sedition and rebellion
Sedition Rebellion
● It is enough that the public uprising ● The public uprising is always
is tumultuous; coupled with taking up arms against
the gov't;
● The purpose of the offenders may ● The purpose is always political
be political or social (see Art. 139); (overthrow of the gov't; see Art. 134)
● Common crimes are not absorbed in ● Common crimes committed in
sedition. If the force, intimidation or furtherance of or during the course
violence was committed with the use of the rebellion are absorbed by the
of an unlicensed firearm, such use latter.
will be considered as an aggravating
circumstance. (See Sec. 29, RA
10591)
In League v. People (73 Phil. 155), the accused claimed that the crime he committed was
only sedition because the uprising took place only in a municipality (which is a small
territory). The SC ruled otherwise, saying that what distinguishes sedition from rebellion is
not the extent of the territory covered by the uprising but the object at which the uprising is
aimed. In this particular case, the purpose of the uprising was to obtain the independence of
certain portions of the territory from the gov't and withdrawing it from the authority of the
central gov't. This is definitely not one of the purposes of sedition. (Reyes, RPC, p. 105)
