21/07/2025
This is the TRUTH that needs to be repeated over and over again: LAHAT ng batang nagkasala sa batas, ano man ang edad, ay may PANANAGUTAN sa Juvenile Justice Law.
Wala na tayo dapat sa debate ng edad. Ang totoong problema natin ay kung paano ipatutupad nang maayos ang batas at kung paano susuportahan ang mga programa nito gaya ng community-based intervention (para sa minor offenses) at rehabilitasyon sa Bahay Pag-Asa (para sa mga seryosong krimen at paulit-ulit na minor offenses).
Senator Robin Padilla: the age is NOT the problem, lowering the MACR (minimum age of criminal responsibility) is NOT the solution, and the law was already amended in 2013 -- an amendment that already addresses your concerns about cases where children commit serious crimes.
Children are NOT little adults. To make children as young as 10 CRIMINALLY liable means tagging them as criminals -- which they will imbibe as their identity -- and exposing them to an already broken ADULT criminal justice system, which studies have shown to make children graduate to more serious crimes instead of being reformed or rehabilitated.
Senator Padilla, the VERY ESSENCE of having a Juvenile Justice Law is to have a SEPARATE justice system for children. Because they are children.
We invite you to sit down with our social workers, child rights workers — in fact, we even have an entire Juvenile Justice and Welfare Council that monitors the implementation of the law — to learn firsthand that what we need are more social workers, more funding, and more programs, not lowering the MACR.
Senator Padilla, you of all people should know the value of redemption. You were once given one yourself as a former person deprived of liberty.
It's the same second chance that every child in conflict with the law deserves, and one that can only happen if we maintain a separate justice system for them, where the child, the victim, and the community are healed, and focus on the real solution: full and effective implementation.
Be a champion of second chances for children, not a lawmaker who will further condemn them to a negative life path.