MANILA – After it failed to become a law during the previous Congress, Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III refiled a bill lowering the age of criminal liability from the current 15 to 13 years old.
Based on his Senate Bill No. 5, children below 18 years but above 12 years of age during the time of the commission of a crime would be held liable “unless proven that he or she acted without discernment.”
Children aged nine to 12 years old who committed “serious crimes” such as parricide, murder, and infanticide would be mandatorily placed in the Bahay Pag-asa youth center.
Sotto’s proposed bill mandates all local government units to allocate funding for the construction of rehabilitation centers for juvenile delinquents.
“The State must ensure that those children in conflict with the law who are currently exempted from criminal liability who take advantage of the same must not be given the same privilege,” Sotto said.
The House of Representatives approved on the third and final reading its version of the bill which sets the minimum age of criminal liability at 12 years old, higher than the earlier proposed nine years old during the last Congress.
A counterpart bill in the upper chamber, Senate Bill 2026, was also filed by Sotto where the minimum age of criminal responsibility shall be lowered to 12 years old from the existing 15 years old./PN
