Someone borrowed money from me and won't pay it back. Can I file estafa and have them jailed?

Why

Article III, Section 20 of the 1987 Constitution provides that no person shall be imprisoned for debt. A loan of money is a mutuum under Article 1933 of the Civil Code, and under Article 1953 the borrower becomes the owner of the money and is bound to pay back an equal amount. Because the money became the borrower's own, spending it is not a crime, and failing to repay it is a breach of a civil obligation.

Estafa under Article 315 of the Revised Penal Code is different: the offender must defraud the victim through one of the means the law lists. Two come up most often. First, misappropriating money or property received in trust, on commission, for administration, or under any other obligation to deliver or return that same property, for example an agent who pockets collections or someone given money to buy a specific item who spends it on something else. Second, false pretenses or fraudulent acts made before or at the same time as the handing over of the money, such as using a fictitious name or pretending to have property, credit, a business, or imaginary transactions. A promise to pay that is simply broken later is not, by itself, that kind of deceit.

Checks are a separate matter. Issuing a postdated check knowing there are no or insufficient funds, without telling the payee, is one of the means of estafa under Article 315, and a bounced check can also be prosecuted under Batas Pambansa Blg. 22. If the deceit was carried out online, Section 6 of the Cybercrime Prevention Act (RA 10175) raises the penalty by one degree.

For a plain unpaid loan, the civil route works. Under Article 1169 of the Civil Code, the debtor is in delay from the time you demand payment, judicially or extrajudicially, so a written demand letter matters. Interest is due only if it was expressly agreed in writing (Article 1956); if none was agreed, Article 2209 lets you recover legal interest as damages once the debtor is in delay. You have ten years to sue on a written loan agreement and six years on an oral one (Articles 1144 and 1145). If you and the borrower are individuals living in the same city or municipality, the dispute usually goes to the Lupong Tagapamayapa first, then to small claims court or a regular collection case.

Be careful how you collect. Threatening a debtor with a jail term the law does not allow, shaming them online, or seizing their belongings can expose you to liability. Under Article 287 of the Revised Penal Code, seizing a debtor's property by violence to apply it to the debt is light coercion, and a public post accusing someone of being a scammer can lead to a libel or cyberlibel complaint.