Reconsider law on child punishment, priest urges

A Cebu-based priest has called on the Cebu City council to reconsider an ordinance banning physical punishment of children.

Fr. Carmelo Diola said the ordinance passed on June 27 was “very extreme” and removes from parents the right and responsibility as the first disciplinarians of their children.

It also negates Filipino culture which accepts “moderate” forms of physical punishment, he said.

Diola, executive director of the Cebu-based Dilaab Movement that advocates good governance through the organizing of support groups, said he was expressing his personal stand on the issue.

The ordinance imposes a fine of P5,000 or imprisonment of more than six months, or both, depending on court discretion to violators. It covers parents, relatives, teachers, nannies and housemaids, who inflict pain or even humiliate children by shaving their hair or verbally abusing them.

It also prohibits the hitting, pinching of ears, pulling of hair, slapping and kicking of a child and forcing the child to kneel.

Diola described the ordinance as problematic because it lumps together acts of abuse with acceptable forms of punishment on children.

“Everyone is against child abuse and there’s no debate in that. But we already have laws against this,” he told the Inquirer in a phone interview on Sunday.