Buluan, Maguindanao—The Provincial Board will adopt the “Positive Discipline on Children” bill pending at the national legislation level and urged Congress to pass the measure to help shape the country’s future for the children, a young member of the local law-making body said.
Maguindanao Board Member King Jhazzer Mangudadatu also led petition of support to Senate Bill No. 1477 which had been apparently pending at Conference Committee level as of Wednesday, November 28—following the approval of its counterpart House Bills 516 and 6955 in the Committee on the Welfare of Children, under Rep. Divina Grace Yu of Zamboanga del Sur.
Mangudadatu, son of Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, said the provincial legislative body will adopt a local version of the measure. Pending in the Upper Chamber is Senate Bill No. 1477, filed by Senators Grace Poe, Risa Hontiveros, and Nancy Binay.
“I am pushing for a local legislation [in the Provincial Board], while we’re waiting for the passage in Congress of the measure. But we are also looking at adding some aspects or application of the local culture,” the young Mangudadatu said over dxMS, a Catholic-run radio station.
The pre-colonial Maguindanao also had a codified traditional law that stipulates child rights even in penal liabilities. For instance, Article LXIV of the old Maguindanao Sultanate’s Kaanun Luwaran (Code of Luwaran) states: “If a child or an imbecile person kills another person, he shall not be liable to punishment, but shall pay blood money.”
Codified mostly from the Sunni Safi-I School of Muslim Law, the counterpart of Maguindanao’s Kaanun Luwaran in the old Sulu Sultanate is “Kaanun Diwan” or the Code of Diwan, according to Mufti Abulwahid Inju of Tawi-Tawi.
In the House of Representatives, “The proposed ‘Positive and Non-Violent Discipline of Children Act’ intends to be more of a promotion of positive discipline, rather than establishing punishment for violence against children as the latter is already being fulfilled by Republic Act 7610 or the Anti-Child Abuse Law,” the House sponsors have said.
