Monday, April 14, 2008 Seares: Age-15- or-under suspect By Pachico A. Seares News Sense
A PARENT who worries about his child being shot or knifed to death over a cellphone worries about these things:
[1] If the suspect is adult, will police catch him and will fiscals not let him get away by sloppy work?
[2] If the suspect is a child, will he go scot-free under a liberalized law?
Skip No. 1 for now. A more current concern is over the child who commits or is made to commit a crime.
Last Thursday, a man in Lorega-San Miguel, Cebu City was arrested for allegedly possessing 50 grams of shabu and using his 12-year-old boy as drug courier.
Under Juvenile Justice Law, a child aged 15 or under isn’t criminally liable. So the Lorega boy walks, or goes to DSWD, then walks.
The boy is both violator and victim. For pushing shabu, he isn’t punished but for the abuse of the child, his father is.
The boy also offends the state but the state protects him. State policy has been to help minors.
The problem is magnified because being a child is now made a shield by many perps and even by the minor offenders themselves.
Not even Sharon
It’s worse when there’s a private victim other than the exploited child. If a child is killed for any reason by another child who is age 15 or under, victim’s parents would be devastated and not even Sharon Cuneta could lessen the pain.
But it’s not totally the fault of husband and law author Sen. Kiko Pangilinan. Government is bound to provide structures for the Juvenile Justice Law and it has not done so. And there are kinks in the law that must be removed.
There is mercy for the child who kills but there’s none for the child killed. Justice can be lopsided.
