Lapu-Lapu boy’s death revives call to amend law that protects child offenders

Seven-year-old Joshua Veloso drowned last week.

But the boys who taunted and chased him into the sea in barangay Buaya, Lapu-Lapu City, are too young to be arrested or detained by the police.

“Gusto ko matagaan siya og hustisya. Mapriso gyud unta sila (I want justice for my son. Those responsible should go to jail),” said Joshua’s mother Alma Rocacolba.

In the family’s one-room house in the urban poor neighborhood of Buaya, Joshua’s white coffin dominates the space.

The funeral is set on Monday.

Lapu-Lapu police were able to identify six boys aged 7 to ll in the bullying incident.

While police said the drowning was “accidental” and the minors had no liability, the death certificate signed by Supt. Nestor Sator, who conducted the autopsy on Joshua, labeled the manner of death as “homicide.”

The cause of death was certified as “asphyxia by drowning.”   The autopsy report will still be released on Monday yet.

Alma, a 34-year-old housewife, doesn’t know much about the 2004 Juvenile Justice Law, which exempts minors in trouble with the law from criminal liability.

But when she found out that two of the boys who had tormented Joshua were released from the police station because of the special law that shields youths below 18, she reacted sharply.

“Wala gyud ko kauyon ana. Unta ilisdan ang balaod. Og sa ila pa na nahitabo, ganahan kaha sila?” (I don’t agree with that law. It should be changed. If my ordeal happened to them, would they like it? )

Rocacolba was teary-eyed when Cebu Daily News talked to her at home.

She said that if the law isn’t amended, young people won’t be afraid to commit crimes.

“Maong maanad na sila pagbuhat og sala kay menor de edad man. Magsalig sila. Maayo patagomon (Young people would get used to committing crimes because they know they are minors and can get away with it. They’ll rely on that. Better let them taste the consequences of their actions),” she said.

Joshua’s father, Arnold Veloso, said he wanted the culprits to surrender and be placed behind bars.

“Basin mabuhat na nila sa lain.”  (They may do the same hame to someone else.)

Joshua’s case echoes an ongoing debate about Republic Act 9344, the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of 2004, and calls by law enforcement agencies and lawyers to amend the law that protects children who commit crimes.

Under this special law, “a child 15 years of age or under at the time of the commission of the offense shall be exempt from criminal liability.”

The government is supposed to have an “intervention program” for children in conflict with the law.

Minors aged 16 or 17 can still be held liable if they acted “with discernment,” meaning they knew they were aware of their wrongdoing.

Senior Supt. Rey Lyndon Lawas in a phone interview earlier said that based on witnesses they talked to, Joshua accidentally drowned.

He said that Joshua’s companion Jun (not his real name) related that  the six boys were at a distance. Joshua stayed under a bamboo footbridge.

While Jun was teased and bullied, he was not aware where Joshua had gone. After the other boys had swum away, Jun tried to look for Joshua and found his slipper under the footbridge. He asked the help of a resident, who swam around and found Joshua unconscious under the water.

An affidavit of resident Wilnie Mordeno said she scolded the young bullies but said she didn’t see anyone push Joshua.  Joshua was holding on to a bamboo post under the footbridge.  She didn’t see him fall into the sea or drown.

The police chief said he suspects Joshua fell or lost his grip of the bamboo post.

The six boys who accosted Joshua and Jun as they were walking home from school were known in the neighborhood as the “Sandugo,” a  group of young troublemakers.

They were described as out-of-school youths, whose parents were mostly garbage scavengers.

One was aged 7, two were aged 8, one was 9 and two are 11-year-old boys.

Earlier witness accounts reported in Cebu Daily News said Joshua was pushed to the sea, boxed and his head forced under water./with Correspondent Norman Mendoza