"Legislators who approved this bill may not be monsters, but this is a monstrous act that they should be held accountable to."
"Legislators who approved this bill may not be monsters, but this is a monstrous act that they should be held accountable to."
A day after the House Committee on Justice swiftly approved House Bill No. 8858, the House of Representatives began the plenary debates on the proposed measure lowering criminal liability to nine years old. Under the existing law, Republic Act 9344, as amended, also known as the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of 2006, a child 15 years of age or under at the time of the offense shall be exempt from criminal liability. However, the child shall be subjected to an “intervention program.”
As approved, H.B. No. 8858 eventually lowered the age of criminal responsibility (deceptively rephrased to “social responsibility”): from 15 years old to 12 years old. If a counter bill is approved by the Senate, children from 12 years old to 17 years old will be deemed criminally liable for an offense if they acted with discernment. 2. If found by authorities to be dependent, abandoned, neglected or abused by the parents, the child will be placed in a youth care facility. 3. Children from 12 years old to 15 years old who commit specified serious crimes are deemed a “neglected child” and will be placed in a special facility within a youth care facility. 4. A child above 12 years old up to 18 who commits an offense for the second time or more and has been previously deemed a “neglected child” shall undergo an “intensive intervention program” supervised by the local social welfare and development officer.
Understandably, the House move stirred a hornet’s nest of fear and disgust from various quarters. Opposition ranges from the argument that it is anti-poor to lack of relevant study that lowering the criminal age will prevent syndicates from exploiting children. Surely, any punitive measure that involves incarceration of children in conflict with the law as young as 12 years old is reprehensible. In an ideal setting, putting these 12-year-old “criminals” in a youth care facility is a feasible measure at crime prevention and rehabilitation. But the reality is that our penal system is too dysfunctional to provide for a rehabilitative and safe environment to youthful offenders, let alone 12-15-year-old children.
Without a drastic improvement in our justice and penal system, chances are that these children will be subject to processes and criminal procedures that will most likely harm than improve their chances for reintegration into society. Given the chronic lack of facilities, these children will most likely be arrested, detained, tried, and finally incarcerated alongside adults—just imagine the psychological and physical impact on their young minds and bodies after being exposed to abuse and the harsh environment of incarceration. Note that the State cannot even properly provide a fitting and appropriate detention cells for adult detainees who are now languishing in the squalor of overly congested prison cells. How on earth can it now guarantee that these youthful offenders will be given proper housing, let alone effective intervention programs and not just simply lump them together with adult criminals?
It is curious that the proponents of H.B. 8858 argue that lowering the criminal liability is protecting these children from being used by ruthless and unscrupulous criminal syndicates to evade prosecution and punishment. First, majority of the children in conflict with law commit petty crimes such as vagrancy, petty theft, and the like. These are mostly status offenses mostly attributed to economic and social neglect. Even assuming these children are being used by criminal syndicates, the way to go is to penalize these syndicates and rehabilitate the children.
The main argument why HB 8858 passed was supposedly because the current juvenile justice system is a dismal failure. R.A. 9344 may be a failure to many only because it was never given the chance to succeed. Like most laws in this country, there is no proper implementation of R.A. 9344. It must be emphasized that under the law, children under 15 who commit a crime do not go scot-free. As amended through RA 10630 which strengthened the Philippine juvenile justice system, there are provisions in the law that provide for assistance to children at risk and children in conflict with the law through prevention, intervention, diversion, and rehabilitation programs and reintegration into the community. Instead, of penalizing minor offenders, the better approach is to enhance the rehabilitative mechanisms of the Juvenile Justice and Welfare law and adopt measures for its full implementation.
We must also bear in mind that the Philippines is a State Party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and is bound by its letter and spirit that prohibits this approach to children in conflict with the law.
In addition, lowering criminal responsibility to 12 years old from the current 15 is unconstitutional because it contravenes the constitutional provisions in the Bill of Rights on due process and equal protection of the laws, as well as those provisions that provide particular protection to youth and children such as Article II, Section 13 which provides that “The State recognizes the vital role of the youth in nation-building and shall promote and protect their physical, moral, spiritual, intellectual, and social well-being. It shall inculcate in the youth patriotism and nationalism, and encourage their involvement in public and civic affairs.”
There is no scientific basis for saying that 12-year-old children are more mature than 10-year-old children. In fact, for me, the ideal age for criminal responsibility should be 18 years old when the child is fully emancipated. Under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, all persons under 18 are considered children and covered by the Convention. Fifteen years old is, for me, a compromise and the maximum those who love children can support.
In sum, the approved Bill is still not acceptable. The lowering of the age is arbitrary and not based on scientific evidence; it is anti-children, anti-poor, heartless, and inhumane. I know personally many of the legislators who voted for HB 8858. Some of them are good people, certainly not the monsters that many have now been calling them. But they should know that this is a terrible decision they are making. They may not be monsters but this is a monstrous act that they should be held accountable to.
We must make sure the Senate says no and does not approve a counterpart bill. We must make sure that we do not elect new senators who will allow such a monstrous and cruel policy to become the law of the land. Because what is at stake is the future of our children which is the future of this country, let this be a litmus test for me on whom we should vote for this May.
I teach in many universities, including undergraduate students, law, masteral, and doctoral classes. Meeting 400 plus students, mostly young, a week from Manila to Cagayan de Oro gives me hope that our country will be fine. The young, and especially our children, are our greatest treasure. We must love them. We must protect them from all harm, and especially from a Congress who would turn them into criminals.