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Denial of financial support

Notes:

Section 5(i) of R.A. No. 9262 defines a criminalized mode of psychological violence committed against women and/or children as follows:

SECTION 5. Acts of Violence Against Women and Their Children. — The crime of violence against women and their children is committed through any of the following acts:

x x x x

(i) Causing mental or emotional anguish, public ridicule or humiliation to the woman or her child, including, but not limited to, repeated verbal and emotional abuse, and denial of financial support or custody of minor children or denial of access to the woman's child/children.

 

The Supreme Court sitting en banc in the recent landmark case of Acharon v. People (Acharon) provided guidelines for determining what properly constitutes a violation of Section 5(i) of R.A. No. 9262 for cases involving denial of financial support. In this regard, it enumerated the following elements of the crime:

1. The offended party is a woman and/or her child or children;

2. The woman is either the wife or former wife of the offender, or is a woman with whom the offender has or had a sexual or dating relationship, or is a woman with whom such offender has a common child. As for the woman's child or children, they may be legitimate or illegitimate, or living within or without the family abode;

3. The offender willfully refuses to give or consciously denies the woman and/or her child or children financial support that is legally due her and/or her child or children; and

4. The offender denied the woman and/or her child or children the financial support for the purpose of causing the woman and/or her child or children mental or emotional anguish.

It was clarified in Acharon that the commission of this crime through "denial of financial support" is mala in se and thus requires the presence of criminal intent. The mere failure to provide financial support is insufficient to support a conviction. It must be proven that the accused willfully and consciously denied financial support legally due to the woman for the purpose of inflicting mental or emotional anguish upon her. It was pertinently elucidated:

The Court stresses that Section 5 (i) of R.A. 9262 uses the phrase "denial of financial support" in defining the criminal act. The word "denial" is defined as "refusal to satisfy a request or desire" or "the act of not allowing someone to do or have something." The foregoing definitions connote willfulness, or an active exertion of effort so that one would not be able to have or do something. This may be contrasted with the word "failure," defined as "the fact of not doing something [one] should have done," which in turn connotes passivity. From the plain meaning of the words used, the act punished by Section 5 (i) is, therefore, dolo in nature — there must be a concurrence between intent, freedom, and intelligence, in order to consummate the crime.

In this connection, the Court deems it proper to clarify, as Associate Justices Amy C. Lazaro-Javier and Mario V. Lopez pointed out in their respective Opinions that the crimes penalized under Section 5 (i) and 5 (e) of R.A. 9262 are mala in se, not mala prohibita, even though R.A. 9262 is a special penal law. The acts punished therein are inherently wrong or depraved, and the language used under the said penal law requires a mental element. Being a crime mala in se, there must thus be a concurrence of both actus reus and mens rea to constitute the crime. "Actus reus pertains to the external or overt acts or omissions included in a crime's definition while mens rea refers to the accused's guilty state of mind or criminal intent accompanying the actus reus."

It is not enough, therefore, for the woman to experience mental or emotional anguish, or for her partner to deny financial support that is legally due her. In order for criminal liability to arise under Section 5 (i) of R.A. 9262, insofar as it deals with "denial of financial support," there must, therefore, be evidence on record that the accused willfully or consciously withheld financial support legally due the woman for the purpose of inflicting mental or emotional anguish upon her. In other words, the actus reus of the offense under Section 5 (i) is the willful denial of financial support, while the mens rea is the intention to inflict mental or emotional anguish upon the woman. Both must thus exist and be proven in court before a person may be convicted of violating Section 5 (i) of R.A. 9262.

"It bears emphasis that Section 5 (i) penalizes some forms of psychological violence that are inflicted on victims who are women and children." In prosecutions under Section 5 (i), therefore, "[p]sychological violence is the means employed by the perpetrator" with denial of financial support as the weapon of choice. In other words, to be punishable by Section 5 (i) of R.A. 9262, it must ultimately be proven that the accused had the intent of inflicting mental or emotional anguish upon the woman, thereby inflicting psychological violence upon her, with the willful denial of financial support being the means selected by the accused to accomplish said purpose.

This means that the mere failure or one's inability to provide financial support is not sufficient to rise to the level of criminality under Section 5 (i), even if mental or emotional anguish is experienced by the woman. In other words, even if the woman were to suffer mental or emotional anguish due to the lack of financial support, but the accused merely failed or was unable to so provide support, then criminal liability would not arise. A contrary interpretation to the foregoing would result in absurd, if not outright unconstitutional, consequences. 

To reiterate, the mere fact that the accused failed to provide financial support due from him is not punishable under R.A. No. 9262. The normal remedy of a person deprived of financial support is to file a civil case for support against the delinquent person consistent with the provisions of the New Civil Code and the Family Code. However, for criminal liability to arise out of such failure to give support, the facts qualifying the delinquent person's act of denial or deprivation of financial support must be proven.

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