Children in conflict with law

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“Ang kabataan ay pag-asa ng bayan” – Dr. Jose Rizal, Philippine National Hero.

But children and youth in the Philippines face enormous challenges.  With a huge number of families living below poverty line, compounded by armed conflict and natural disasters, children suffer from lack of education, malnutrition and lack of parental care and guidance, among others, driving some to a life of crime.

Children in conflict with law continue to proliferate, with organized criminal syndicates using children in their criminal operations.

By legal definition (RA 9344), a “child in conflict with law” is a person who, at the time of the commission of an offense, is at least 15 years and 1 day old but below 18 years old.

By law, children who are 15 years old or under at the time of the commission of an offense are totally exempt from criminal liability, subject only to an intervention program, when consented to by the child and the parents.

Those between 15 and 18 years old, who did not act with discernment, are detained in youth centers and put through rehabilitation and reintegration programs to improve their social and personal skills, with the end goal of making them productive members of their respective communities.

Children between 15 and 18 years old who acted with discernment are detained in a special youth care facility called Bahay Pag-asa or the Intensive Juvenile Intervention and Support Center, and placed under a diversion program but may be thereafter be prosecuted, should the program fail.

This “restorative justice” focuses on the restoration of the damage done to the victims, the local community and to the child in conflict with law, who is considered to be a victim of circumstance.

In 2013, the law was amended, mandating all children above 12 years of age up to 15 who commit serious crimes such as parricide, murder, infanticide, kidnapping and rape, among others, to be detained at Bahay Pag-asa and undergo intensive intervention.

Last year, Philippine legislature pushed to lower the Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility (MACR) to 12 years old, placing children between the ages of 12 and 18 years old in danger of being prosecuted and imprisoned for crimes committed, if found to have acted with discernment, but this move faced massive objections from civic groups, branding the same as anti-poor and a form of child abuse.

Our Constitution provides that “The State recognizes the vital role of the youth in nation-building and shall promote and protect their physical, moral, spiritual, intellectual, and social well-being”.

Could lowering the MACR be unconstitutional?  Could it deter organized criminal syndicates from exploiting children?  Is for the best interest for the children in conflict with law, most of whom come from impoverished or dysfunctional families, to be branded as criminals at such young age instead of being given a second chance to reform and be rehabilitated?  Think…