TWO national networks of children’s rights advocates have condemned lawmakers for even contemplating on reducing the minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR) from the current 15 years to only 9 years.
One justification for this, the Child Rights Network (CRN) and Philippine Action for Youth Offenders (Payo) said in a statement, is President Duterte’s determination to punish the children being used as drug couriers or as informants of drug syndicates.
CRN and Payo argued that it would be foolish for the government to impose punishments on children who are so young they cannot discern what is right and what is wrong.
Citing statistics, CRN and Payo said the total number of children in conflict with the law (CICL) was not even 4 percent, and this includes many who are themselves victims, or are too poor to reject cash or blandishments by crime gangs.
In response to the determined campaign by Speaker Pantaleon D. Alvarez and his allies at the House of Representatives to approve a bill reducing MACR to only 9 years, CRN and Payo vowed to intensify their effort to block it.
On February 16 CRN and Payo urged legislators to junk House Bill 2 and five other bills that seek to amend the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act by reducing the MACR.
CRN and Payo said evidence against lowering MACR has been mounting, with medical, psychological and legal experts, as well as social workers, insisting that a reduced MACR would increase the number of CICLs.
The logical attitude of the Duterte administration should be to zero in on foreign illegal-drugs manufacturers and their local cohorts who are on top of the drug pyramid if they are really keen on winning the fight against shabu, or methamphetamine hydrochloride.
“Lowering MACR is antihuman rights and antipoor. It is a wrong solution to the problem it seeks to address. It goes against the rights and best interests of children, especially those in conflict with the law,” they added.