By Camille A. Aguinaldo, Reporter
THE gaps in the implementation of Republic Act No. 9344 or the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act were highlighted during the Senate hearing on the bills lowering the minimum age of criminal liability on Tuesday, with Senator Richard J. Gordon likely to recommend setting it to 12 years old.
The Senate committee on justice and human rights, chaired by Mr. Gordon, conducted its first public hearing on the bill, a day after its House counterpart committee approved the measure lowering the age of criminal responsibility to nine years old.
“Age does not matter. It’s the implementation, it’s the gaps that have to be connected….Even if it’s nine or 15 or 12, it’s still the same situation if you’re not implementing the intention of the law. That’s the problem,” Mr. Gordon told reporters after the hearing.
“Nine I think is too tender. I’m more leaning now to 12 and I will maybe recommend 12 but after about three years we look it up and then we increase it to 15, and eventually 18,” he said.
During the hearing, Juvenile Justice and Welfare Council (JJWC) executive director Tricia Clare A. Oco revealed that the Philippines only has 63 “Bahay Pag-asa” or youth care facilities for children in conflict with the law. Five of them are non-operational.
She even described the situation of these youth care facilities as being “worse than prison” due to the lack of rehabilitation programs for youth offenders.
“For those operational, they don’t have sufficient budget….They lacked the minimum staff requirement, they even lacked food for children. Some of the Bahay Pag-asa we see were worse than prisons. They don’t have programs, beds, cabinets. The children there are just told to keep quiet the whole day and not do anything,” she said.
She also pointed out that some local government units (LGUs) have lacked the necessary mechanism, such as community rehabilitation and the maintenance of Bahay Pag-asa, to hold children accountable for the crimes they committed.
Under the present law, children below 15 years old who commit crimes are exempted from criminal liability and are subjected to an intervention program. LGUs and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are tasked to manage and fund the Bahay Pag-asa where children in conflict with the law can stay while awaiting court decisions of their case.
Citing the police blotter records they gathered, Ms. Oco said some 9,562 crimes were allegedly committed by children in 2018.
National Police Commission (NaPolCom) executive officer Rogelio T. Casurao provided the profile of children who commit crimes as being male, aged 15 to 18 year old, high school undergraduates, and out of school due to financial difficulties. Most of the crimes they commit were robbery and theft, he added. Most of the children were first-time offenders as well.
Meanwhile, more senators voiced their opposition to the age proposed by the House of Representatives on the minimum age of criminal responsibility to nine years old.
“Our focus should be on rehabilitating child offenders through more constructive and nurturing means than outright imprisonment. Children belong in schools, not in jails,” Senator Sherwin T. Gatchalian said in a statement on Tuesday.
“As somebody who has been imprisoned, I know that such a harsh environment will severely traumatize those children,” Senator Antonio F. Trillanes IV said in a statement.
“Throw these kids in a congested jail with adult criminals, and chances are they will emerge from prison and rejoin society not as reformed and skilled individuals but as bitter young men,” Senator Grace S. Poe-Llamanzares said in a statement.
“Maybe what we should do as policy is to increase the penalty of adults who used kids to commit crime and to improve our intelligence unit and improve our capacity to reduce crime instead of penalizing children who are in fact victims in these situations,” Senator Joel J. Villanueva said in a statement.
For their part, Senators Panfilo M. Lacson and Joseph Victor G. Ejercito said they would support a measure the lowering of the age of criminal liability to a certain level.
Mr. Lacson said such a measure should provide that the youth offender is proven to have acted with discernment, the sentencing is suspended until the age of majority, and there are enough reformative facilities.
“I am more amenable to lowering it to the internationally accepted standards of 12 years old. They should not go to regular jails because they need rehabilitation. It’s the criminals who use minors that deserve heavy penalties,” Senator Joseph Victor G. Ejercito said, for his part, in a mobile phone message to reporters.

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