THIS corner salutes Miss Universe Catriona Gray for challenging the Duterte government to “readjust” its focus on why children commit crimes, not on lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility.
Prez Du30 had proposed to lower that age from 15 to 9, prompting the submissive House of Representatives to pass the bill as asked.
The ball, now in the Senate, has hit a snag because of snowballing public opposition. The senators would like to meet the Malacañang occupant half-way by replacing the “9” with “12”. But even that has to be set aside for refiling in the next Congress – no doubt out of fear that it could harm senators now running for re-election.
Ms Gray’s unsolicited advice merits government attention, if only because she had visited the slums of Tondo in behalf of the Young Focus International, a non-profit international organization with a mission “to improve the mental, physical, and social well-being of young people in poor communities by means of education, health care, and personal support.”
The question “why” ought to jolt government leaders into realizing that incarcerating children is not the solution that would turn them away from stealing, selling drugs or even killing. As long as their problems remain, as long would they grow more wayward in adolescence. Their basic problem is just like that of their parents – survival. The instinct to survive could even push them to self-destruction.
Long ago, for instance, when I first heard that children of the poor were among those sniffing solvent at the back of the Cultural Center of the Philippines in Manila, I asked one of them what it was for.
“Panlaban sa gutom,” the shabby boy replied while rubbing his abdomen, adding that his parents were jobless. Meanwhile, I saw another boy, obviously a snatcher, running away from a chasing couple.
That brief scene showed why some children transgress the law: As in the animal world, the instinct of self-preservation is inherent especially in grown-up men with family to support.
In the past one year, ordinary people like hawkers, drivers of jeepney, taxi and tricycle have been caught by the police in buy-bust operations with plastics of shabu valued at thousands to millions of pesos. Those caught always say it’s not theirs. True, indeed they are mere couriers promised much more than their month’s or even year’s usual income. Mostly hardly-educated, they hope to “retire” from poverty doing better-paid sideline, which could eventually turn into full-time business regardless of risk to life and limb.
The practice of getting rich through crime is now called “Sutton’s law” in memory of the notorious American bank robber William Francis “Willie” Sutton, Jr. (June 30, 1901 – November 2, 1980). Not having gone beyond 8th grade in school, Willie could not find a well-paying job. But by the time he was arrested and jailed, he had stolen an estimated $2 million. When asked by a reporter why he broke the banks, he quipped, “Because that’s where the money is.”
In countries where everybody earns enough to make both ends meet, people do not turn to risky crimes. I found this out for myself in my first and only visit to New Zealand. When I dropped by a bank to convert US currency into New Zealand dollars, I noticed there was no security guard. Only once did I see two policemen biking on the street.
My resident host, Michael Adger, said “They don’t catch a thief or any other law breaker most of the time because there’s none.” (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
