Why I Don’t Like Kiko Pangilinan

  photo credit: www.senate.gov.ph

Before 2006, the Philippine Revised  Penal Code exempts children below 9 years old from criminal liability. This is because the law considers children within this age range to have no discernment or the ability to know the consequences of their unlawful acts.  This means that if minors aged below 9 years old committeed a crime,  you cannot charge them before the courts. Under the same law, children above 9 years old and up to 15 years old, have no criminal liability UNLESS they were acting with discernment. This means that minors within that age range can be charged in court for a crime if it can be seen from the circumstances that they were aware that what they did was wrong. 

All these changed in 2006. Under the sponsorship of the esteemed Senator Francis Pangilinan,  the Congress came out with Republic Act No. 9344 which stunned legal practitioners in the country, and generally shook the Philippine legal system. The said law became known as the “Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of 2006″.

What is wrong with this and why did it cause so much furor? Plenty. The law basically is full of holes and creates processes for which the established government agencies has little- if none- resources to answer. For example, the law says minors cannot be detained together with adults but in most provinces, there are no detention facilities for minors. Hence, there is no choice but to place the minors in the same detention facility with adults.

But the most radical of its provisions is Sec. 6 which states:

SEC. 6. Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility. - A child fifteen (15) years of age or under at the time of the commission of the offense shall be exempt from criminal liability. However, the child shall be subjected to an intervention program pursuant to Section 20 of this Act.

A child above fifteen (15) years but below eighteen (18) years of age shall likewise be exempt from criminal liability and be subjected to an intervention program, unless he/she has acted with discernment, in which case, such child shall be subjected to the appropriate proceedings in accordance with this Act.

The exemption from criminal liability herein established does not include exemption from civil liability, which shall be enforced in accordance with existing laws.

Basically, the new law says that children below 15 years old cannot be charged before the courts for their criminal acts. This also means that children above 15 and below 18 can be held criminally liable  IF and only if, they are found to be acting with discernment.

Discernment has been said by the Supreme Court in one case to be the “mental capacity to understand the difference between right and wrong”. If a minor waited after dark and when the victim was alone before he raped her, and after having raped her, warned her not to tell anyone of what happened, the minor can be said to have been acting with discernment.

In the light of today’s technology and the modern times, can we still say that minors from the age of 13-15 have no discernment? If a 14 year old urchin grabs your ipod as you are walking in the street, can you say that he did not know that taking away someone’s property is bad? Do you think that a 14-year old boy would not be aware that engaging in sex at his age is forbidden?  Do you think that his sex hormones have not yet started kicking in? What do you think would happen if he gives in to his urges and decides to play “house” with a 10 year old girl?  Suppose a criminal  syndicate decides to use these kids to sell drugs for them? Because of RA 9344, the minor cannot be held criminally liable. 

And herein lies the problem for me. I believe that most kids these days are savvy and well-informed enough to know the difference between right and wrong. It is generally taught to us in childhood that it is wrong to hurt someone else or to take away someone’s property. We are taught that drugs are bad and that we should stay away from them. Yet, under the law, despite knowing that certain acts are wrong, minors who commit them can not be made liable for their actions. 

I believe that the old law was too harsh on minors. However, I also believe that RA 9344 is too lax with them. In 2006, I attended a lecture where one of the resource person is someone from an NGO which batted for the amendment of the Revised Penal Code, with regard to the criminal liability of minors. He said that what they were pushing for was for the raising of the age of exemption from criminal liability from 9 years old to 12. They were surprised when the good Senator Pangilinan raised it to 15 years old.

And so, because of this law, Senator Pangilinan will not be getting my vote anytime soon.