EDITORIAL - Age of criminal responsibility

The street children are all over Metro Manila, with video footage showing them jumping on vehicles as they beg for alms, snatching the cash boxes of jeepney drivers. Even around Manila’s Rizal Park, the traffic islands of Roxas Boulevard now teem with the street children, with their mothers fanning themselves on the grass, right under the noses of traffic cops. The children scratch the cars of motorists who refuse to have their windshields wiped with the kids’ dirty rags and filthy water.

Vandalism and petty thievery are the least of the offenses committed by children, who are immune from criminal prosecution as long as they are no older than 15. Republic Act 9344, the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of 2006, saw to this. Older children up to age 18 may be prosecuted for criminal offenses, but only if they are deemed to have acted with discernment.

The law was quickly exploited by crime gangs, which employed minors as drug couriers, jueteng bet collectors, lookouts and messengers. Terrorist and rebel groups use children in their supply networks. Some children are even turned into armed fighters.

Now Senate President Vicente Sotto III has filed a bill seeking to amend RA 9344 and lower the age of criminal responsibility to 13. The bill is sure to get the support of President Duterte, who has been calling for such an amendment amid his crackdown on the illegal drug trade. With presidential backing, Sotto’s bill will likely be passed.

Alongside the amendment, the government must intensify social interventions to keep children off the streets and save them from a life of crime. The country’s juvenile rehabilitation and detention facilities are even more inadequate than the local jails that are now overflowing with inmates apprehended under Oplan Tokhang or for violating city ordinances.

Modern penology has the twin aims of punishment and rehabilitation. Recidivists and so-called hardened criminals are subjected to rehabilitation or correction efforts. Criminal behavior even among children cannot be tolerated. But after appropriate punishment, everyone deserves a second chance, and child offenders deserve it even more. Any amendment of the law on juvenile justice must take this into account.