BROKENNESS is most manifested when government is called in to fix things. Like disciplining our children.
Howls have been raised by child rights advocates and stalwart Duterte oppositionists on the lowering of criminal liability of a child to nine years old. Indeed, as it is stated, this calls for a loud howl.
The sadness is not the criminal liability of the child for murder, homicide, and rape, but that there are children accused of such. A nine-year-old is but a child, yes, and rape, homicide, and murder must not be part of their world, especially with them as the offender.
To murder or rape at an age when you are still unable to discern underscores the brokenness of our families. While there is truth in the self-righteous declarations of many that the parents are the ones who should be punished, the fact remains that the act is by the child.
Parents have obviously lost control long before the rape was committed for no rape would have been committed had the parents been in control.
And no, it's not jail, dear propagandists. It's a Bahay Pag-asa, much like the Bahay Pag-asa in Davao City where very few get a glimpse of, its graduates integrated back into society away from the judgmental eyes of the public, with a better future ahead.
But this kind of facility is sadly very foreign to people outside the city. In a national government where corruption was made to flourish and government facilities were always the dilapidated, congested, and neglected, a rehabilitation center that focuses on the child is unthinkable, unimaginable.
And so, this corrupt government that was allowed to flourish for three decades took pride in having a law that protects children from imprisonment, and in full hypocrisy just let them be, unchecked, unassisted, to grow up to be the criminals they were starting to become.
In the family ministry that is being run by a group of volunteers here in Davao City, their mission is to make more and more couples truly plan their families by praying for the children God has prepared for them, and not stipulate all their requirements on the kind of child they want, and thus in the process forget that the beautiful talented child they are praying got the DNA of their forefathers or uncles and aunts who have the criminal gene. The prayers come long before conception, so that what is delivered is a baby in the perfect image and likeness of God.
After conception, the genes are already set in place and all that the parents can do is live a prayerful life. Of course, we are not like that. We can't even be bothered by daily chores, much less intense prayer.
Here comes government saying 15 is too late. But we do not want that. We liked it better when people did nothing.