Former senator-turned party-list Rep. Leila de Lima on Sunday strongly opposed Senator Robinhood Padilla’s bill seeking to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 10, calling it a moral and institutional failure.
“A child is not a criminal. A child who has lost their way should not be imprisoned, but guided, cared for, and given hope,” she said.
De Lima, who is also an ex-Justice secretary, said punishing young offenders does not address the root causes of crime involving minors.
She urged lawmakers and the public to ask deeper questions about why children are involved in crimes and who truly benefits from exploiting them.
“Senator Padilla’s proposal is not new. It is a recycled idea that refuses to die, no matter how many times child rights advocates, neuroscientists, developmental psychologists, social workers, and human rights defenders have refuted it with facts, and compassion,” she said.
De Lima defended the existing Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act, or Republic Act 9344, describing it as a sound, forward-looking law centered on restorative justice.
She pointed out that the real problem lies not in the legislation itself, but in its poor implementation at the local level.
Many local government units still lack proper youth care facilities such as Bahay Pag-asa, as well as trained personnel like social workers and psychologists, De Lima noted.
“Let us not pretend that incarceration is the only language the State knows how to speak. As a former Secretary of Justice, I have seen what jails do to children,” she added. “I have seen what care, education, and structured rehabilitation can achieve. The difference is life-changing. Sometimes, life-saving.”
De Lima called on her colleagues to view the issue not as a matter of being lenient or strict, but of defining the country’s core values.
True justice, she said, requires the wisdom to distinguish between fair consequences and outright cruelty.
“Let us stop treating children as threats. They are mirrors. If we don’t like what we see, it is not the mirror we must shatter. It is the reflection of our failures,” she stressed.
Padilla’s bill seeks to amend Republic Act (RA) No. 9344 or the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of 2006, removing criminal liability exemptions for offenders aged 10 to 17 who commit heinous crimes.
This existing law provides for the minimum age of criminal responsibility at 15.
One of the bill’s proposed amendments states that children in conflict with the law (CICL) aged 10 but below 18 years old are to be put in Bahay Pag-asa or a 24-hour child-caring institution, except when the offense charged is a heinous crime.
It adds that an offender above 10 years but below 18 years of age who committed a heinous crime shall not be exempt from criminal liability.
Heinous crimes include parricide, murder, infanticide, kidnapping, and serious illegal detention where the victim is killed or raped, robbery with homicide or rape, destructive arson, rape, carnapping where the driver or occupant is killed or raped, or offenses under Republic Act No. 9165, otherwise known as the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002, punishable by more than 12 years of imprisonment.
Under the proposed measure, the provision that if it has been determined that the child taken into custody is 15 years old or below, he or she shall be subjected to a community-based intervention program supervised by the local social welfare and development officer, but shall not apply if the offense is a heinous crime.
It also replaces age 12 in the existing law with 15 to 18 years of age when it comes to repetition of offenses, and puts the word “non-heinous” before the word offense.
Automatic suspension of sentence will only apply if the child is under 18 years of age and if he or she commits a “non-heinous” offense. The same goes with the dismissal of the case of children 15 years old and below, but applicable only to “non-heinous” offenses.
“While we make it clear that our thrust is to ensure that youth offenders are dealt with through the lens of restorative and not punitive justice, we must guarantee the integrity of our justice system remains and that we do not condone a more precarious state of abuse towards our children,” Padilla’s bill stated.
“The law remains unresponsive, if not completely remiss in exacting justice, from juvenile offenses to heinous crimes,” he said, referring to the existing law.
Editor’s Note: This is an updated article. Originally posted with the headline: “De Lima slams proposal to lower age of criminal responsibility to 10”
