IN THE KNOW: Law on illicit relationship

A government employee or official who is proven to be in an illicit relationship can be penalized or dismissed from office.

In Article 334 of the Revised Penal Code, a husband who committed concubinage, or keeping a mistress in the conjugal dwelling, having sexual intercourse, under scandalous circumstances, with a woman who is not his wife, or cohabiting with her in any other place, shall be punished by prision correccional in its minimum and medium periods (from 6 months and one day to 4 years and 2 months.)

In Acebedo v Arquero (2003), the Supreme Court ruled that a man having an illicit relationship with a woman not his wife is, within the purview of Section 46 (b)(5) of Subtitle A, Title I, Book V of Executive Order No. 292 or Administrative Code of 1987, a “disgraceful and immoral conduct.”

Under Rule IV, Section 52A (15) of the Revised Uniform Rules on Administrative Cases in the Civil Service, an immoral conduct is classified as a grave offense which calls for a penalty of suspension for six months and one day to one year for the first offense, and dismissal for the second offense.

If the offender is a lawyer, he could be disbarred for violating Rule 1.01 of Canon 1 of the Code of Professional Responsibility which proscribes a lawyer from engaging in unlawful, dishonest, immoral or deceitful conduct, and Rule 7.03 of Canon 7 of the same Code which proscribes a lawyer from engaging in any conduct that adversely reflects on his fitness to practice law, nor shall he, whether in public or private life, behave in a scandalous manner to the discredit of the legal profession (Guevarra v Eala, 2007). —INQUIRER RESEARCH

Sources: Revised Penal Code, sc.judiciary.gov.ph and Code of Professional Responsibility