In law school, these circumstances are usually referred to as the JEMAA. As enshrined under Articles 11 to 15 of the Revised Penal Code, these are the Justifying, Exempting, Mitigating, Aggravating and Alternative circumstances.
These circumstances may be classified into two: (1) Defenses; and (2) Modification. Justifying and Exempting circumstances are considered as a defense considering that, if sufficiently and convincingly proven, it may result to the acquittal of the accused and the dismissal of the criminal case. Mitigating, Aggravating and Alternative circumstances are deemed as modifier as they tend only to increase or decrease the possible imposable penalty of a particular crime.
Justifying circumstances. Justifying circumstances are those where the act of the supposed offender is said to be in accordance with law and there is no transgression of the law. Considering that the act is lawful, the person does not incur any criminal or civil liability. Under Article 11 of the RPC, the following do incur criminal liability: (1) Anyone who acts in defense of his person or rights; (2) Anyone who acts in defense of the person or rights of his spouse, ascendants, descendants, or legitimate, natural or adopted brothers or sisters, or of his relatives by affinity in the same degrees, and those by consanguinity within the fourth civil degree; (3) Anyone who acts in defense of the person or rights of a stranger; (4) Any person who, in order to avoid an evil or injury, does an act which causes damage to another; (5) Any person who acts in the fulfillment of a duty or in the lawful exercise of a right or office; and (6). Any person who acts in obedience to an order issued by a superior for some lawful purpose.
Exempting Circumstances. In exempting circumstances, on the other hand, there is a crime committed but the offender is not criminally liable. The factor that exempt the accused from criminal liability is attributable to his lack of voluntariness in committing the act (lack of freedom, lack of intelligence and lack of intent).
Article 12 of the RPC enumerates the Circumstances which exempt from criminal liability. — The following are exempt from criminal liability: (1) An imbecile or an insane person, unless the latter has acted during a lucid interval; (2) Any person who, while performing a lawful act with due care, causes an injury by mere accident without fault or intention of causing it; (3) Any person who acts under the compulsion of irresistible force; (4) Any person who acts under the impulse of an uncontrollable fear of an equal or greater injury; (5) Any person who fails to perform an act required by law, when prevented by some lawful insuperable cause.
Mitigating Circumstances. Mitigating Circumstances lessens the severity of the criminal act. The presence of these circumstances enumerated under Article 13 of the RPC either (1) reduce the imposable penalty by one or two degrees; or (2) lower it to its minimum period. Article 13. — The following are mitigating circumstances: (1) Those mentioned in the preceding chapter, when all the requisites necessary to justify the act or to exempt from criminal liability in the respective cases are not attendant; (2) That the offender is over seventy years; (3) That the offender had no intention to commit so grave a wrong as that committed; (4) That sufficient provocation or threat on the part of the offended party immediately preceded the act; (5) That the act was committed in the immediate vindication of a grave offense to the one committing the felony (delito) his spouse, ascendants, descendants, legitimate, natural or adopted brothers or sisters or relatives by affinity within the same degrees; (6) That of having acted upon an impulse so powerful as naturally to have produced passion or obfuscation; (7) That the offender had voluntarily surrendered himself to a person in authority or his agents, or that he had voluntarily confessed his guilt before the court prior to the presentation of the evidence for the prosecution: (8) That the offender is deaf and dumb, blind or otherwise suffering some physical defect which thus restricts his means of action, defense, or communication with his fellow beings; (9) Such illness of the offender as would diminish the exercise of the will-power of the offender without, however, depriving him of consciousness of his acts; (10) And, finally, any other circumstance of a similar nature and analogous to those above mentioned.
Aggravating Circumstances. These are the matters or factors that increase the severity or gravity of the offense. When attendant aggravating circumstances either: (1) change the nature of the offense as to make it more serious and result to the imposition of a higher penalty (qualifying aggravating); or increase the penalty to be imposed in its maximum period (generic aggravating). Example of qualifying aggravating circumstances are those enumerated under Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code which when present qualifies that act of killing from homicide to murder. All the other circumstances under Article 14 of the RPC are ordinarily considered as generic aggravating circumstances.
Alternative Circumstance. Lastly, Alternative Circumstances. Article 15 of the RPC states that Alternative Circumstances are those which must be taken into consideration as aggravating or mitigating according to the nature and effects of the crime and the other conditions attending its commission. They are the relationship, intoxication and the degree of instruction and education of the offender. The alternative circumstance of relationship shall be taken into consideration when the offended party is the spouse, ascendant, descendant, legitimate, natural, or adopted brother or sister, or relative by affinity in the same degrees of the offender. The intoxication of the offender shall be taken into consideration as a mitigating circumstance when the offender has committed a felony in a state of intoxication, if the same is not habitual or subsequent to the plan to commit said felony; but when the intoxication is habitual or intentional, it shall be considered as an aggravating circumstance.