House OKs bill decriminalizing vagrancy on 2nd reading

MANILA, Philippines - The House of Representatives has approved on second reading a measure decriminalizing vagrancy to eliminate indiscriminate arrests and detention of the poor.

House Bill 4936 – authored by Reps. Victorino Dennis Socrates of Palawan, Angelo Palmones of the Agham party-list and Linabelle Ruth Villarica of Bulacan – seeks to amend Republic Act 3815, the Revised Penal Code.

The bill’s plenary approval was endorsed by the House committee on revision of laws chaired by Pangasinan Rep. Marlyn Primicias-Agabas.

The measure cites vagrancy as “a crime that is a convenient excuse of law enforcement operatives to subject street dwellers to indiscriminate arrests or detentions, which often impinge on the homeless or the poor.”

Villarica said the police and other law enforcement authorities have rounded up the poor, accusing them of vagrancy and holding them in prison cells. Most of these vagrants are detained for long periods because they have no access to a lawyer.

“The law on vagrancy blurs the line between poverty and criminality. As the economic crisis persists, the poor will continue to suffer from oppressive laws such as the law on vagrancy,” she said.

Socrates said the anti-vagrancy law “has also been used in a way that discriminates on the basis of gender.” The bill seeks to eliminate discrimination against women temporarily arrested for vagrancy while being investigated for a more serious offense of prostitution but is seldom applied to men who act as pimps, traffickers or clients, Villarica said.

This violates the 1997 agreement of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, according to the bill’s authors.