Answer
Under Republic Act No. 9344 (the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act), as amended by Republic Act No. 10630, a child fifteen (15) years of age or below at the time of the offense is exempt from criminal liability, though the child is subjected to an intervention program. This superseded the old rule in the Revised Penal Code, which had fixed the age of absolute irresponsibility much lower.
A child above fifteen but below eighteen is likewise exempt unless he or she acted with discernment — an understanding of the wrongfulness of the act and its consequences. The burden is on the prosecution to prove discernment beyond reasonable doubt, and courts infer it from circumstances such as concealment of the offense or conduct after the crime showing awareness of guilt. A child who acted with discernment is not punished as an adult but is dealt with under the juvenile-justice law.
Researching Philippine law? Intellegal brings Philippine case-law search, statute and issuance exploration, multi-dimension case comparison, document visualization, and cited deep-research reports into a single workflow — with every citation traced back to its original source, so you can verify each answer rather than take it on trust. Every authority it surfaces links back to its original provision or decision, so you can open the source and confirm the wording yourself, and save or export the questions and reports you reference most. See the full report for the statutes and cases behind this answer, or explore the related questions below.