1) Framing the topic in Philippine law

In the Philippines, “emotional distress” or “psychological distress” is not typically pursued as a stand-alone, free-floating cause of action in the same way “intentional infliction of emotional distress” is treated in some other jurisdictions. Philippine practice usually treats emotional/psychological suffering as:

A kind of recoverable damage (most commonly moral damages) that attaches to a recognized cause of action; and/or
A component of a statutory or criminal wrong (e.g., psychological violence under violence-against-women law; harassment-type offenses; defamation; threats; coercion), where the distress is part of the harm or gravamen.

Because of that, the prescription period (the deadline to file) depends on what legal hook you use—civil, criminal, labor/administrative, or special statute—and how the action is characterized (contract, quasi-delict, “injury to rights,” etc.).

Educational note: Prescription is rule-dense and fact-sensitive. The same distressing event can yield different filing deadlines depending on the chosen cause of action and the applicable statute.

2) Common legal bases where emotional/psychological distress is claimed

A. Civil Code provisions often invoked

Philippine pleadings for distress frequently rely on combinations of these Civil Code concepts:

Moral damages (generally): the Civil Code recognizes moral damages to compensate for mental anguish, serious anxiety, besmirched reputation, wounded feelings, moral shock, social humiliation, and similar injury.
Abuse of rights and human relations:
- Article 19 (abuse of rights),
- Article 20 (liability for acts contrary to law),
- Article 21 (liability for acts contrary to morals, good customs, public policy),
- Article 26 (respect for dignity, personality, privacy, and peace of mind).
Quasi-delict / tort: Article 2176 (fault/negligence causing damage to another, with no pre-existing contract).

Key point: These provisions guide liability and damages, but prescription is governed mainly by the Civil Code rules on prescription of actions (and, for special laws, by Act No. 3326 unless the special law sets its own deadline).

B. Contract-based claims (including employment contracts)

Emotional distress can also be pursued as damages for breach of contract—especially where the breach is attended by bad faith, fraud, or oppressive conduct, which can open the door to moral damages in contract cases in appropriate circumstances.

C. Crimes and special statutes

Some situations are framed as criminal offenses (or special-law offenses) where emotional distress is either:

Part of the offense’s harm (e.g., harassment, threats), or
Explicitly recognized (e.g., “psychological violence” in certain protective statutes).

Where a civil claim is anchored on a crime, the civil action’s timing may track the criminal prescription, unless the plaintiff pursues an independent civil action (e.g., quasi-delict) with its own deadline.

3) The main prescription periods (civil actions) that matter for distress claims

A. Quasi-delict (tort) — 4 years

If the distress claim is anchored on quasi-delict (fault/negligence causing injury), the prescriptive period is generally 4 years.

This bucket often covers:

Negligent acts causing psychological injury (e.g., negligent mishandling of sensitive personal information, negligent supervision, negligent infliction of harm), and
Intentional or reckless acts pleaded as tortious conduct under human relations provisions, depending on how the complaint is framed.

B. “Injury to rights” — commonly treated as 4 years

Civil actions “upon an injury to the rights of the plaintiff” are commonly treated as having a 4-year prescriptive period. This category is frequently pleaded alongside Articles 19, 20, 21, and 26 (dignity/privacy/peace of mind), because the gravamen is the violation of a right (privacy, dignity, reputation, etc.) producing mental anguish.

C. Written contract — 10 years; oral contract — 6 years

If emotional distress damages are claimed as a consequence of breach of contract:

Written contract: typically 10 years
Oral contract: typically 6 years

This becomes relevant in settings like:

Employment or service arrangements (though labor rules may overlay),
Medical/therapeutic service contracts (distinct from malpractice tort framing),
Carrier/passenger, hotel/guest, school/student arrangements, where the claim is framed as contractual breach attended by bad faith or gross disregard.

D. Other civil prescriptive periods that can come into play

Depending on the theory and remedy, other Civil Code periods may apply (for example, specific statutory remedies with their own timelines). In distress cases, however, the practical “big four” are:

4 years (quasi-delict / injury to rights),
10 years (written contract),
6 years (oral contract),
Plus special-law timelines when the distress is tied to special statutes.

4) Criminal prescription: Revised Penal Code (RPC) overview

If the distressing conduct is prosecuted as an RPC crime (for example, grave threats, coercion, unjust vexation, slander/libel variants depending on facts and medium, alarms and scandals, physical injuries cases where mental suffering is claimed as damages, etc.), prescription of crimes depends mainly on the penalty attached to the offense.

A practical high-level guide under the RPC (conceptually):

Most serious penalties (reclusion temporal or higher): longer prescription (often measured in decades)
Correctional penalties: mid-range prescription (often around a decade)
Arresto mayor offenses: shorter prescription (around several years)
Light offenses: very short prescription (months)

Important procedural reality: For criminally anchored distress, lawyers often focus on (a) the correct offense classification and penalty, and (b) the rule on when the prescriptive period starts and what interrupts it.

5) Special laws: Act No. 3326 as the default rule (unless the special law says otherwise)

For many offenses under special laws (not the Revised Penal Code), the usual default is Act No. 3326, unless the special statute provides its own prescriptive period.

A commonly used working summary under Act No. 3326:

If punishable by imprisonment of 6 years or more → often treated as prescribing in 12 years
If punishable by imprisonment of less than 6 years → often treated as prescribing in 8 years
If punishable by fine only → often treated as prescribing in 2 years

Act No. 3326 also uses a discovery rule formulation for many special-law offenses (i.e., prescription can run from discovery and is interrupted by institution of proceedings), but how “discovery” applies can be contentious depending on the statute and facts.

Why this matters for distress claims: Many modern harassment-, privacy-, cyber-, and protection-oriented statutes are special laws. If the distress claim is pursued as a special-law offense (or civil actions tied to them), Act No. 3326 is often the starting point—subject to the statute’s own text and relevant jurisprudence.

6) Civil action arising from a crime vs. independent civil action: why your choice changes deadlines

A single set of facts can generate:

A criminal case, and
A civil case for damages.

Philippine law also recognizes that civil liability may arise from crime, but a plaintiff may also pursue an independent civil action (commonly quasi-delict) based on the same conduct.

A. If you rely on civil liability “arising from crime”

When the civil claim is treated as the civil aspect of the criminal offense, its viability can be tied to the criminal action, including the prescription period of the offense and procedural rules on institution and interruption.

B. If you file an independent civil action (e.g., quasi-delict)

If you sue independently under quasi-delict or human relations provisions, the civil prescriptive period (often 4 years) becomes central—even if a criminal complaint is also possible.

Practical consequence:

A matter may be too late criminally (crime prescribed) but still actionable civilly under a different theory—or vice versa—depending on dates, tolling, and characterization.

7) When does the prescriptive period start running?

A. General civil rule: accrual of cause of action

In civil cases, prescription generally runs from the time the cause of action accrues—often when:

The wrongful act occurred and produced injury, or
The plaintiff’s right was violated in a way that makes suit immediately maintainable.

For distress claims, disputes often arise about whether “injury” occurs:

On the date of the act,
On the date the harm became appreciable/diagnosable, or
Over a continuing period.

B. Continuing acts / continuing injury

Where wrongful conduct is repeated (e.g., persistent harassment, repeated humiliation, serial threats), parties may argue a continuing wrong theory. Courts may treat each act as a separate actionable instance, or treat the series as a continuing pattern, depending on the specific cause of action and proof.

C. Discovery-type issues

For certain special laws and some civil theories involving concealment, plaintiffs sometimes invoke a discovery concept (i.e., the clock starts when the plaintiff discovered, or should reasonably have discovered, the violation). This is more explicitly embedded in many special-law frameworks (through Act No. 3326) than in ordinary quasi-delict.

8) What interrupts or tolls prescription?

A. Civil interruption concepts (typical)

Under general Civil Code principles, prescription may be affected by:

Filing of the action in court (judicial interruption),
Extrajudicial demand (in obligations contexts),
Written acknowledgment of the obligation by the debtor (again, obligations contexts).

How these apply depends on whether the case is treated as an “obligation” susceptible to demand/acknowledgment mechanics, and whether the claim is being pursued in a way the law recognizes as interruptive.

B. Criminal / special-law interruption concepts

For criminal matters, prescription is generally interrupted by institution of proceedings (the exact triggering procedural act can be debated depending on whether the case is under the RPC or a special law, and on procedural posture such as preliminary investigation). In practice, litigants pay close attention to:

Date of filing of complaint,
Date of filing of information,
Dates of resolution, and
Whether the proceedings were validly initiated.

C. Minority, incapacity, and other equitable considerations

As a general matter, legal disability (such as minority) and certain forms of incapacity can affect the running of prescription in some contexts. The details depend on the specific action and the governing code provisions.

9) Typical scenarios and the prescription “map”

Below is a practical way to think about deadlines for distress claims (always subject to exact cause of action, statute text, and classification):

Scenario 1: Workplace bullying / humiliation causing anxiety

Possible routes:

Labor remedies (which have their own prescriptive rules, e.g., money claims timelines and complaint periods), and/or
Civil tort/human relations (often a 4-year frame), and/or
Criminal/special-law if conduct fits an offense (RPC or special statute), using penalty-based prescription or Act 3326.

Scenario 2: Online harassment / doxxing causing psychological distress

Possible routes:

Civil (privacy/dignity/rights violation → often argued as 4 years),
Special laws (cyber-related or privacy-related statutes) → often Act 3326 unless statute sets a different period,
Criminal (if fitting RPC offenses via online medium, subject to correct classification).

Scenario 3: Psychological abuse in intimate relationships

Possible routes:

Special protective statute (if applicable), where prescription depends on that statute’s penalty structure and/or any explicit prescriptive clause, plus Act 3326 where applicable, and
Civil claims for damages (which may be pleaded independently, often returning to 4-year tort/rights-injury framing, or other applicable civil periods).

Scenario 4: Medical/therapeutic setting where mishandling caused trauma

Possible routes:

Contract (service agreement; written vs oral → 10 or 6 years) and/or
Quasi-delict (professional negligence → commonly 4 years), with disputes about when the cause accrued.

10) Choosing the cause of action: what changes the prescriptive period

A. Same facts, different clock

The single biggest reason people miscalculate deadlines in distress cases is assuming there is one universal “emotional distress prescription period.” In reality:

Quasi-delict / injury to rights: commonly 4 years
Written contract: 10 years
Oral contract: 6 years
RPC crimes: penalty-based prescription
Special-law offenses: often Act No. 3326 (commonly 12/8/2 years depending on penalty), unless the law states otherwise
Labor/administrative remedies: governed by their own statutes and rules, sometimes shorter than civil prescription

B. Strategic coupling: criminal + civil, or civil alone

Because emotional/psychological distress is often proved through testimony, documentation, and circumstances rather than a single objective metric, parties may:

Use criminal filing to access protective measures or frame gravity, while also pursuing civil damages; or
Proceed civilly under quasi-delict/human relations where criminal prescription is tight or the evidentiary standard is more suitable to civil goals.

11) Evidence and pleading points that interact with prescription (without changing it)

While evidence does not change the legal deadline, it affects whether the chosen theory is credible and whether accrual/continuing-wrong arguments hold:

Date anchoring: messages, emails, incident reports, screenshots, diaries (kept contemporaneously), HR records, barangay blotters
Medical/psych records: consultation notes, diagnosis, therapy timeline, medications, clinical assessments
Pattern proof: repeated acts establishing continuing conduct rather than isolated incident
Causation narrative: link between wrongful act and distress (sleep impairment, panic attacks, functional decline) in a way the cause of action requires

These items often become crucial when the dispute is “Did prescription start earlier than the plaintiff claims?”

12) Key takeaways (Philippine context)

Philippine claims for emotional/psychological distress are usually pursued as moral damages (and related damages) attached to a recognized civil, criminal, labor, or statutory cause of action.
The prescriptive period is therefore not uniform; it depends on how the case is legally framed:
- 4 years commonly applies to quasi-delict and many injury-to-rights framings.
- 10 years (written) / 6 years (oral) commonly apply where distress damages are sought as a consequence of breach of contract.
- Criminal prescription under the Revised Penal Code depends primarily on the penalty.
- Special laws often default to Act No. 3326 (commonly 12/8/2 years depending on the penalty), unless the statute provides another period.
The hardest issues in practice are often (a) correct classification of the cause of action/offense, (b) pinpointing accrual or discovery, and (c) whether prescription was interrupted by a legally recognized step.