Sufficient provocation or threat, A13(4) Revised Penal Code

1. Concept

Sufficient provocation or threat – refers to the mitigating circumstance under the Revised Penal Code wherein there was sufficient provocation or threat on the part of the offended party immediately preceding the act.

a. Legal basis

Article 13. Mitigating circumstances. - The following are mitigating circumstances;

4. That sufficient provocation or threat on the part of the offended party immediately preceded the act.

(Revised Penal Code)

2. Sufficient provocation

For the mitigating circumstance of sufficient provocation, the accused committed the offense due to a sufficient provocation or threat coming from the offended party immediately preceding the crime.

As a mitigating circumstance, sufficient provocation is any unjust or improper conduct or act of the victim adequate enough to excite a person to commit a wrong, which is accordingly proportionate in gravity. (People v. Racal, G.R. No. 224886, September 4, 2017, Per Peralta, J.)

a. Proportionality

[T]he provocation sufficient to mitigate an offense must be proportionate to the gravity of the retaliatory act. In People vs. Leonor, this Court rejected the plea of the accused that a push and “bad words” justified retaliation with a knife, the provocation being insufficient to deserve the benefit of the mitigating circumstance of prior provocation by the offended party. In this case, the victim merely shouted at the appellant and asked him to leave. Stabbing her to death could hardly...