Proposal to lower age for criminal liability hit

Sen. Francis Pangillinan. (Photo by RICHARD A. REYES / Philippine Daily Inquirer)

Opposition politicians on Tuesday hit out at President Duterte for calling an amendment to a law to lower the age for criminal liability from the current 15 years to nine years.

President Duterte has argued that the current law has helped produce people with criminal minds, but several senators said lowering the age further was too harsh.

Sen. Francis Pangilinan, who authored the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act, stressed that the law has already been amended in 2013 to address the concerns of the President.

He said that while the age for criminal liability remained at 15 years old, his amendment already “made it mandatory for children to be confined involuntarily of less than one year should the child commit serious offenses such as homicide, murder, rape and illegal drugs.”

“What it needs at this stage is full funding and implementation rather than amendments,” Pangilinan said.

He also reasoned that figures the Philippine National Police in 2016 showed that only 2 percent of crimes reported were committed by minors, and that going after them to address criminality was not a solution.

But he said he did not see anything political about President Duterte’s criticism of the juvenile crime law, noting that the Chief Executive had been critical of the law since he was mayor of Davao City.

“(The President) believes in punitive justice while I believe in restorative justice,” he added.

The minority bloc, to which Pangilinan belongs, also intends to oppose any bill that endorses President Duterte’s bid to lower the age of criminal liability, according to Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV.

Trillanes argued that should a nine-year-old is sentenced to serve imprisonment, he would come out as a “hardened criminal” given the environment inside jails.

Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian said the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act should be given the chance and be fully implemented. He noted that in his district in Valenzuela, about 70 percent of the children charged under the law were successfully rehabilitated and returned to their families.

But Sen. Panfilo Lacson said he was in favor of amending the law, stressing that it has been largely misunderstood. He said children convicted for breaking the law would have suspended sentence while being rehabilitated. —WITH A REPORT FROM DJ YAP