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BY SONIA D. DAQUILA
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Saturday, March 4, 2017
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YESTERDAY the final series of debate culminated with St. Augustine’s Cup 2017 won by the College of Law.
The proposition was on the “Lowering of Age of Criminal Responsibility from 15 to 12 Years old.”
The College of Law students, who were on the affirmative side, got all the awards as champion. They were the Best Debating Team, and they also got the Best Speaker and the Best Debater awards.
The Political Science, third year students were valiant despite the lopsided matching. I could not help but smile when the Law students spoke about recidivism and Remedial or Procedural Law which were alien to Junior AB Political Science students. Nonetheless, I admire the Political Science students’ guts to be matched with Law students.
Thinking of children 15 years old and below and who are used to perpetrate crimes because they cannot be held liable under our law, they are easy preys to bad elements of society. It is true that most children involved in criminal acts from simple theft to robbery to homicide or parricide, from acts of lasciviousness to rape, mostly belong to those families found below the poverty line.
With the current situation of our institutions for “rehabilitation” and prison cells congested with hardened criminals, I really doubt if this lowering of “age of criminal responsibility “ can also lower the number of criminality.
Aged from 12 to 17, the children are still in their pubertal stage. Perhaps, raising the civil liabilities of parents of juvenile delinquents may serve as deterrent for further commission of crimes. All other factors considered, values inculcation in the family, in the school, in the church and the mass media can help lessen juvenile delinquency. (delsocorrodaquila@gmail.com/PN)
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