Progressive children’s rights advocates, human rights defenders and progressive politicians have strongly condemned a new proposal to amend the only law of the Philippine reactionary state protecting children. They strongly averred that children in conflict with the law are victims.
The new proposal by reactionary rabid pro-Duterte senator Robin Padilla, seeks to amend Republic Act (RA) No. 9344 or the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of 2006 by lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR) from 15 to 10 years old. A similar attempt by another reactionary senator to lower the MACR from 15 to 12 years old was made in 2019 but failed to pass into law.
The Salinlahi Alliance for Children’s Concerns which is at the forefront of the advocacy for children’s rights and welfare has asserted that children offenders should not be criminalized because they are victims of their circumstances, like poverty, trauma, and exploitation, and becoming a criminal is not their nature. They maintained that rehabilitation rather than punishment for children is based on scientific consensus and international principles.
“Including 10-year-old children in the criminal justice system, especially for heinous crimes, violates international standards on child development and cognitive maturity. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has previously warned that lowering the age of MACR will not stop syndicates from exploiting children but will instead extend the scope of prosecution.
“Criminalizing children only worsens the cycle of neglect in a system that has long abandoned children and their families. Accessible schools, free health services, affordable nutritious food, and facilities for rehabilitation that truly care for and provide for the basic needs of children should be available.
“To address the socio-economic crisis of Filipino families, raise workers’ wages, lower the price of basic commodities, and protect and defend children,” the group emphasized.
ML Partylist Representative Leila De Lima also joined those opposing the new proposal saying this bill does not address crime. “It punishes trauma. It does not protect society. It betrays children we have already failed,” she pointed out.
De Lima added:“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”.
While there are laws in place supposedly to protect Filipino children, the cruel fact on the ground is that the US-Marcos fascist regime has been targeting Filipino children and youth in its counterrevolutionary war against the people.
Marcos’ fascist troops abduct, torture, illegally arrest and detain minors and infants. Children are victims of bombings, strafings, forced evacuations, food blockades, harassment and intimidation and military occupation, which violate international humanitarian law, and special protections for children, newborns and their nursing mothers.
Under this brutal US-designed counterrevolutionary war against the people, Filipino children are mercilessly killed by AFP soldiers then falsely claimed as casualties in their encounters with New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas.
Under the fascist Duterte regime, at least 122 children, including a one-year-old, have been killed during his brutal “war on drugs” in the Philippines. The mass murderer Rodrigo Duterte is now facing trial at the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity for butchering an estimated 30,000 human beings in this war against the poor.