THE HOUSE Committee on Justice announced on Thursday it was set to finalize the bill seeking to lower the age of criminal responsibility from 15 to nine years old.
Oriental Mindoro’s Rep. Doy Leachon, committee chairperson, cited “recent news and reports show(ing) an alarming increase in the number of syndicates using minors to perpetrate criminal acts.” Because of this, he said, “it is but the time to pass this bill to protect our children from being used by ruthless and unscrupulous criminal syndicates to evade prosecution and punishment.”
What?
This is the panel’s logic: Criminal syndicates use children in their illegal activities to evade prosecution. So, to protect children from being used by these syndicates, the children must be punished. What the f—-? Is this the best our supposedly learned congressmen can come up with?
Lowering of the minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR) of children in conflict with the law (CICL) is contentious. More discussions on this must be done. Many questions must be answered. There is no need to railroad the proposal.
Lawmakers want to lower the MACR from 15 to nine years in the hope of curbing criminality. But do they understand the social context of the CICL problem?
The situation of children in conflict with the law reflects the kind of society we have today. Every time we will look into these children and their families’ impoverished lives, we can see the government’s negligence to provide for their economic needs and welfare as a whole. Poverty is luring and further victimizing Filipino children and youth into anti-social and criminal activities.
Child rights and welfare activists are raising these legitimate concerns. Some even go further as arguing that lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility and placing children in jails is further victimizing these poor youngsters.
Will lowering the MACR bring about social order when Filipino children, most especially the poor and the marginalized, continue to suffer neglect?
The massive education among children and the whole community for prevention of children being involved in crimes is equally important. In cases of crimes already committed by children, there is an urgent need to provide quality rehabilitation programs to encourage them to change and be productive citizens.
The government should seriously address socio-economic issues like joblessness and low wages, among others. Have our lawmakers factored these in our peace and order problem, and specifically in the occurrence of CICL?
