GO AFTER and punish the syndicates.
Rehabilitate the children. Protect them at all cost, instead of persecuting them.
If legislators could have the easy way out, children in conflict with the law will be castigated for the failure of adults to provide the safe space for them to live and grow in a nurturing environment that could protect them from being used by criminals. They will not take any responsibility in ensuring that the legal system will work for, rather than against the children.
In an unfit environment where children grow with dysfunctional families, legislators would tend to close their eyes, and hold children hostage for being in an impoverished situation, without any means of care nor support for them to live life in a dignified and humane manner.
They choose not to be responsible for the utter failure to assist families in the provision of decent housing, equitable livelihood, reproductive health care and education. Not wanting to listen, Senate President Vicente Sotto III refiled the bill lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility.
While there is a lack of evidence to show that children are in any way responsible for the increase in the crime rate in the country, the Senate President who is popular with the kind of Iskul Bukol line of thinking, argued that lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility was meant to “adapt to the changing times.”
Some things defy logic.
Will lowering the age of criminal responsibility deter adult offenders and syndicates from abusing children to commit crimes?
We are confronted with a situation where children cannot be protected from crime and violence, and there is not even the slightest effort to shield them from abuse and exploitation. Why would legislators opt to run after them and snap out their productive lives just to remain relevant and attuned to the changing times?
Nine or 12 years old is way too young to be able to have the full capacity to assess situation and think for themselves. If adults, and this includes our honorable legislators have difficulty in discerning and in carrying out with their mandate, then what would make them think that children, under the worst circumstance, can fend for themselves and do the right thing?
There is blood on how the rights of children are continually violated. There is too much laxity on how legislators and other public officials are held responsible for the things that they omit, and for the things that they choose to clamp down to be able to grandstand.
Collectively, we choose to see children in dire situation and those in conflict with the law as unwanted, a burden on a society that refuses to listen and even see children as human beings. It wants to just get rid of the trash, without maintaining cleanliness. Legislators want to unburden themselves from the most important task of protecting and investing on children and their families. While for some, discussions are better translated into the generics like fish and territorial waters.
The specifics are all about enabling the system to further violate human rights by incarcerating children.
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