President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday blamed Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan for authoring the Juvenile Justice Welfare Act, which he claimed produced “people of criminal minds.”
“This Senator Pangilinan, I do not know why he keeps on winning elections but he [lost once],” Duterte said during the investiture ceremony of the Boy Scouts of the Philippines in Malacañang. “Ayaw ko lang makipag away sa taong iyan kasi kaibigan ko (I just don’t want to fight him because he’s a friend).”
Addressing the young boys in the audience, the President talked about protecting Filipino children from criminality before shifting to the issue of the age of criminal liability.
“Ang ginawa ni Pangilinan…pinasa nya yung Juvenile Offenders Act at binaba nya ang edad sa kinse (What Pangilinan did is he passed the Juvenile Offencers Act and he raised the age of criminal liability to 15),” Duterte said.
He pointed out that young adults aged 15 and below who commit crimes such as murder and rape can simply be returned to their parents at the end of the day.
Duterte said the legislation was merely copied from the United States. However, he said the US requires those who commit serious crimes to enter a correctional facility or a halfway house.
“There they are lectured on responsibility sa gobyerno mo. Then the sense of accountability sa ginawa mong masama (They are lectured on their responsibility to the government. Then the sense of accountability when they do something wrong),” he said.
“The problem with Pangilinan…pinalusot nya yun kaya we produce about five, six generations of (people who commit crimes),” he said. “Ngayon malaki na sila we have produced people of criminal minds.”
(The problem with Pangilinan is he let that law pass and we produced about five or six generations of people who commit crimes. Now they are old, we have produced people of criminal minds.)
“And that is why it is hard to stop the drug problem now,” Duterte said.
By the end of his speech, he said, “The reason why there is criminality is because nobody respects the law anymore. It is because of that Pangilinan law.”
Duterte explained that children are now being used by drug syndicates as couriers since they cannot be arrested.
He said the children do not believe in the law or think that it does not have a bite.
The House of Representatives is currently tackling proposals to lower the age of criminal liability. /rga