Wednesday, June 18, 2008 Malilong: Age of consent By Frank Malilong The Other Side
THE Father’s Day tragedy that claimed the life of the 14-year-old son of a trisikad driver reminds us starkly of the danger posed by a gun in an untrained man’s hand.
The Ermita chief barangay tanod did not, from all indications, mean to harm the boy, much less kill him. In fact, he was performing a duty when the accident occurred; he and other tanods were chasing a drunken man who had terrorized the neighborhood earlier. His mistake was in firing his gun, unmindful of the presence of people other than their target.
The role of the tanods in maintaining peace and order cannot be over-emphasized in the light of the gross disparity in the police to population ratio especially in the urban areas. And yet while we rely on them as our first line of defense against any threat to our personal safety and well-being, have we really prepared them adequately for the job?
For example, have the barangay tanods been trained on the basic rules of engagement? Have they been taught at least the ABCs of good marksmanship? For that matter, do they do know that they cannot, on the strength of their position alone, possess or carry a gun?
The barangay police chief faces criminal and civil liability as a result of the accidental killing. He will, at the very least, lose his job. But come to think of it, are there other people out there who, although they did not pull the trigger, are just as liable for their gross neglect?
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Nelson Colo and Peter Townsend wrote separately to react to the piece in this corner on the case of the pregnant Sangguniang Kabataan chairperson. Both agreed on the inequity in the application of the rules on morality against women.
Townsend also asked if the male who made the girl pregnant could not be held liable for statutory rape considering that she is still under the age of consent.
The answer is no. Under Philippine law, statutory rape is committed against a girl who is under 12 years of age. So until the law punishing child abuse was passed, we had an absurd situation where a girl who is at least 12 years old but is under 18 can theoretically give her consent to a sexual act but not to marriage.
Townsend says that many countries in the world have reduced the age of consent to 16. He claims that in at least one European country, a girl as young as 12 can, with the express approval of her parents, have sexual relations with a male.
“In this day and age when girls mature as early as 12 years of age,” are exposed to TV and movie shows “of the most suggestive nature” and “are preyed upon by oversexed boys, it is time for the Philippines to reduce the age of consent to 16 years.” Townsend also argues that to “deny a woman the right to get married when she has the natural right to get pregnant is criminal.
In fact, under the old law the minimum age to get married was 16 years old in the case of the male and 14 for the female. I remember our Persons and Family Relations class in law school hotly debating on the merits of fixing different age limits for marrying males and females. The discussion became so passionate our professor stepped in and told us to just write our congressmen and senators.
We never got to do it but a quarter of a century later, Congress erased the dividing line by providing for a uniform age of consent to marry for both males and females.
To lower or not to lower the bar? That is the question.
