House OKs bill decriminalizing vagrancy

MANILA, Philippines - The House of Representatives has approved on third and final reading a bill decriminalizing vagrancy.

Palawan Rep. Victorino Dennis Socrates, one of the bill’s authors, said the measure seeks to amend Republic Act 3815, otherwise known as the Revised Penal Code. He said vagrancy, as a crime, “is a convenient excuse for law enforcers to subject street dwellers to indiscriminate arrest, detention, harassment, or extortion.”

Socrates said those who cannot come up with something to give arresting officers or cannot post bail often languish in jail longer than the penalty for their crime. He noted that there are frequent complaints that detained female vagrants or prostitutes are often abused.

“There is a clamor to decriminalize vagrancy on the basis that it discriminates against the poor and is used to penalize those who are homeless or without any visible means of subsistence. The law has also been used in a way that discriminates on the basis of gender,” Socrates said.

The bill eliminates discrimination against women temporarily arrested for vagrancy while being investigated for the more serious offense of prostitution, a practice seldom applied to men who act as pimps or traffickers.

“Women’s groups report that while women, primarily suspected prostitutes, are routinely arrested under the law against vagrancy, such law is never or rarely used against suspected male offenders, such as men who use prostitutes. The anti-vagrancy law has been used as a pretext for arbitrary arrest and detention,” Socrates said.

Other authors of the bill said there are numerous reports of arbitrary arrest by police as a result of the wide discretion afforded to law enforcers by the law prohibiting vagrancy.

“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,” they said.

Socrates’ co-authors include Linabelle Ruth Villarica of Bulacan, Marlyn Primicias-Agabas of Pangasinan and Angelo Palmones of the party-list group Agham.