An opposition lawmaker on Tuesday urged President Rodrigo Duterte to reconsider its position to reduce further the minimum age of criminal responsibility or MACR from 15 years old to nine years old.
Ifugao Rep. Teddy Brawner Baguilat said government's insistence on pushing through Congress a law that will lower the age of criminal liability “goes against the will of the people.”
He cited the latest survey of Pulse Asia showing that 55 percent of the people want to keep the MACR at 15.
Instead, Baguilat said the Duterte administration must be able to fully implement the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act, which provides a complete range of interventions from prevention to rehabilitation such as the establishment of youth centers where children in conflict with the law are given the help they need to get back on the right track.
Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez earlier filed House Bill 2 that seeks to lower the MACR.
Baguilat said lowering the minimum age requirement to nine would increase the number of children in conflict with the law, particularly out-of-school youth and those who practically live in the streets.
Rights advocates belonging to the Child Rights Network also cited a study conducted by the Ateneo de Manila University that said up to 25 percent of those killed by purported members of the Davao Death Squad from 1999 to 2002 were children accused of petty crimes and violations of city ordinances.
"President Duterte has been enamored by an anti-crime war along with his anti-drug campaign that has killed mostly the urban poor under dubious circumstances, with some policemen publicly resigning in Catanduanes and other provinces and cities, since they could not stomach obeying orders from their superiors to add more numbers to the 8,000 victims of extrajudicial killings," Baguilat said.
He noted the President has remained firm in his commitment to reduce the MACR “from 15 to nine or even less,” opening the “floodgates of ridicule” from human rights advocates who insist even infants may eventually be cited for violating the law “for demanding to be fed and for crying in areas where blowing horns is banned.”
"Lowering MACR is an easy way out for the Duterte government, since CICLs [children in conflict with the law] would be treated as adults with full discernment, unaware that economic circumstances will continue to force street waifs to beg in the streets or commit petty crimes," Baguilat said.
Overall, children comprise less than four percent of those accused of misdemeanors and criminal offenses, the lawmaker said, citing CRN research.
Baguilat also slammed the Malacañang statement that lowering MACR “was part of the legislative agenda” of the President, arguing that it is a means to ensure that the Filipino youth would accept responsibility for their actions and be subjected to government intervention programs.
Only nine percent in the Pulse Asia survey believe the age barrier it should be brought down to nine.
"Thus, most Filipinos see the lowering of the minimum age of criminal responsibility as going against the best interests of children," he said.
At present, at least five bills had been filed at the House of Representatives that seek to amend the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act to lower the MACR.
The bills are now under deliberation by a technical working group organized by the Committee on Justice.