THIS unforgettable experience happened in my early twenties. I was driving down a highway somewhere in the US Midwest when this billboard message on the roadside startled me: “If Christ is the answer, what is the question?”
I am now reminded of this by the raging controversy on a law that brings down the age of criminal liability from 15 to 9. This is the House’s answer but to what question. What problem exactly will this solve?
From the way they defend it proponents seem to know only the answer but not the question. They cite, for instance, the alarming rate criminal elements use minors to perform odd jobs in the underworld. But I can’t see how making minors criminally liable at a lower age will stop this nefarious practice.
Minors are clearly victims here of adult criminals and negligent parents. Lowering the age of criminal liability will not stop the practice. It will only make of minors legal criminals and subject to punishment.
So now they insist that the law will not punish or jail minors but will send them to rehabilitation houses run by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). But isn’t that what is being done now? Better still, isn’t that what is NOT being done now under the old age limit of 15 because there are not enough rehabilitation houses to speak of?
What seems closest to being the question is how to minimize or totally prevent minors from being used by underworld characters who are into drug pushing, trafficking in persons, cyberporn, etc. If that is the question, I just do not see how making nine-year olds liable for crimes will stop criminal syndicates and consenting irresponsible parents from using minors in their search for filthy lucre.
What we need is a budget for rehabilitation houses for minors being forced into a life of crime by underworld characters and negligent parents. (We actually need to transform our whole penal system into a rehabilitation system but more about that, later.) What we need is a law that extremely penalizes those who use minors to make money in drugs or in (cyber) porn, etc.
I can’t help assuming that our representatives are quick to attach criminal liability to nine-year olds because they do not expect their nine-year old children or grandchildren to be in the crosshairs of this law. Or, if ever they become targets, they know their money can easily get them off the hook in a two-tiered justice system they are doing nothing to correct.
The law will jeopardize only children living in deplorable poverty zones that are graphic but grim testimonies of government incompetence and neglect. So, I ask again. If bringing down the age of criminal liability is the answer, what really, your honors, is the question?