For every corpse, a victory

When Republic Act No. 9344 was enacted in 2006, it seemed the Philippines was in synch with the global trend of an increasingly enlightened approach toward children and crime. Within a decade, that trend would start to be reversed, not just domestically, with then candidate Rodrigo Duterte campaigning to lower the age of criminal liability back to 9 years of age and categorically contesting the law’s adoption of “restorative justice” as its guiding principle, espousing instead the harsher, traditional view of “retributive justice.”

Still, much as the President was uncompromising both in his attitude toward the purpose of criminal punishment (punishment is the goal; he has little patience with the concept of rehabilitation), it seemed the previous consensus would hold: In 2017, Congress resisted the President’s wishes and retained 15 as the age of criminal liability, raising the penalties for the exploitation of children for criminal purposes instead.

Back in 2017, it could still be argued that there were limits to the President’s popularity: The world still hadn’t grown tired of liquidations taking place nightly; that was the year the President’s popularity suffered its first downturn because of the murder of Kian delos Santos. But just as that murder has faded away, so has the President’s popularity bounced back, on the eve of midterm elections he’s poised to win resoundingly.

So, as with so many things, the center failed to hold; the country is therefore poised to join the ranks of countries that have embarked on lowering the age of criminal responsibility, reversing the previous trend. As far back as 2012 (just six years after the Philippines had raised the age of criminal liability), countries such as Argentina, Brazil, France, Hungary, Korea, Mexico, Peru, the Russian Federation and Spain had been considering lowering the age of criminal liability. Some, such as the United Kingdom, had already done so, because of spectacular cases (in the United Kingdom’s case, it was the murder of a toddler by two 10-year-olds in 1993). Others were resisting efforts to raise the age of criminal responsibility on the basis of extremely peculiar thinking. The interior minister of Pakistan, opposing the raising of the age liability, had reportedly said, “Children in Pakistan grow up faster than those elsewhere because of the country’s hot climate and spicy food….”

That the same type of thinking exists locally, can be gleaned from reading between the lines of Fr. Amadeo Picardal’s summary of the Davao Death Squad’s (DDS) operations from 1998 to 2015, in which he mentions that, of the 1,424 victims liquidated by it, 132 were children (ages 17 and below). Of the 126 boys and six girls killed, the youngest were a 15-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy; a 9-year-old boy was killed by a stray bullet “but was not an intended target.” This means “almost 50 percent of the victims were young people,” mostly in urban poor areas, mostly involved in drugs as users or runners, and including those accused of petty crimes from snatching cell phones to other forms of theft, or members of gangs, or, for 14 of them, cases of mistaken identity.

Father Picardal pointed out that many of the victims were killed in cold blood sitting on street corners or standing around sari-sari stores; most chillingly of all, there were “some who were just released from prison and while waiting for public transportation on the side of the road were suddenly shot by motorcycling men.” As the priest observed, “How the DDS knew the exact time and place they were to be released is amazing.”

Whatever members of Congress believe in acceding to the President’s wishes, the points above are necessary reminders that the Chief E xecutive’s motivations go beyond lowering the age of criminality in order to foster accountability, as some legislators claim. He has never been shy about his belief that liquidation is the best and most suitable response to petty crimes (white-collar crimes such as plunder, it can be argued, are best left to wily lawyers and pliable judges to settle amicably, according to the age-old traditions of the legal profession). In other words, Congress is needed to lower the legal age so as to put juvenile offenders behind bars, after which further—final—punishment can be imposed.

As it is, the success of Mr. Duterte’s 2016 campaign had been demonstrated by ominous events such as one online automotive portal featuring a video of kids throwing rocks at the windshields of cars along Quezon Avenue, resulting in online comments shrieking for the execution of the kids. Similarly, reports of the daily misery of commuters during downpours, in which kids threaten to douse jeepney riders with pails of water unless they forked over bribe money, were met with demands for tough measures. In an election year, these are the voters who will be motivated to go to the polls.

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