(Eagle News) — Opposition senator Risa Hontiveros has reiterated her opposition to lowering the minimum age of criminal liability in the country, even if the House of Representatives has already amended and passed on second reading a bill that pegged the same at 12 years old.
The bill is an amended version of the bill earlier passed by the House justice panel that pegged the minimum age of criminal responsibility at nine years old, from the current 15 years old specified in the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act.
“There is no sense debating and choosing whether the (minimum age of criminal responsibility) should be pegged at 12 or 9 years old. There is really no difference…Minors, whether 12 or 9 years old, are not equipped with the same intellectual and mental capacities as adults,” Hontiveros said in a statement.
According to Hontiveros, the developments have been “saddening and alarming,” given what she said was the lack of appreciation for scientific data on the incomplete mental development and faculties of young individuals below 18 years old.
She said proposals to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility were “immoral, unscientific and ineffective.”
“We have come to a point where, without concrete and well-researched data, government is deciding whether children at 9 or 12 years old should be treated like fully-functioning adults under the law. It is a travesty for a country whose Constitution speaks of the right of children to special protection from neglect, abuse, cruelty, exploitation and other conditions prejudicial to their development,” she said.
As for arguments lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility will not result in the imprisonment of children, but will merely bring them to restorative and rehabilitative programs, she said such an outcome was “impossible, given the dismal condition of youth care facilities at present, as uncovered during the last Senate hearing on the (minimum age of criminal responsibility) bill.”
According to Hontiveros, the solution was to resort to a “better and more thorough implementation of the provisions of the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act, especially in relation to rehabilitation and restoration of the youth.”
“Instead of thinking about at what age children should be considered as criminals, we should instead focus our efforts on programs that will ensure that they will stay out of conflict with the law,” she said.
The Senate has a pending bill that pegs the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 13 years old.
President Rodrigo Duterte has been vocal about his support for the lowering of the age of criminal liability, saying children were already being used by criminals in their illegal activities.