A Davao City councilor reiterated that there is no need to tweak the country’s penal laws by lowering the age of criminal liability.
Councilor Avegayle Ortiz-Omalza, chairperson of the City Council Committee on Women and Children, said on Tuesday the senators instead should give the current Juvenile Justice Welfare Act a chance to be implemented properly.
“Hopefully the Senators would hear the side of the children’s rights advocates, and understand why we shouldn’t lower the age of criminal liability,” Ortiz said.
Ortiz is asking child right’s advocates to continue lobbying the fight against lowering the minimum age of responsibility in the Senate. She noted that prior to the bill filed by Senate president Vicente “Tito” Sotto III seeking to lower the criminal age of liability from 15 years old to 12, the city council had already approved a resolution in 2018, nixing the proposed measure.
“The reason why we are opposing it is because there is already the Juvenile Justice Act,” she said.
What is needed, Ortiz said, is to reintegrate the responsibility of the parents, and make them liable for the crime committed by their children.
“There is a need to go back to the core values of the family. We should see how their parents raised them,” she said.
In Davao City, offenders aged 13 to 17 are sent to rehabilitation at the Bahay Pag-asa Children’s Village in Barangay Bago Oshiro where there are currently more than 70 children under its custody. Ortiz said that the city is proposing to set up a separate Bahay Pag-Asa for girls.
Children’s rights advocates have been strongly opposing the repeal of the Juvenile Justice Act, filed by Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan, among them the ACT 4 Children’s Rights, a non-government organization.
The group’s leader Jaziel Sinadjan said that minor-aged lawbreakers are also victims, and the government must address their needs to be reformed, rather than imprison them.
“Based on psychological aspect, children below 12 years old are not yet matured enough to understand the consequences of their action,” Sinadjan said.
