A child’s wisdom

“THE ONLY one in that show who knew something was wrong was the child,” says psychologist Honey Arellano Carandang, referring of course to Jan-Jan the 6-year-old boy who has focused the attention of the country—and of big business—on children’s rights and mental health.

Carandang, a clinical psychologist and former chair of the Ateneo de Manila University Psychology Department, now teaches at her alma mater UP Diliman, and has set up the MLAC or Maria Lourdes Arellano Carandang Center that provides research and counseling services to families, communities and institutions on matters like family dynamics, family violence and post-traumatic stress.

She is also quite a sharp media critic. Everyone during that episode of “Willing Willie,” she notes, seemed to be endlessly amused at the sight of a 6-year-old boy doing a “macho dancer” performance. Only the boy, she says, was distressed by the goings-on, as shown by the fact that he was crying even as he was performing. Only Jan-Jan seemed aware of the fact that something was wrong with the picture.

“There is a need to make sure that sanctions are applied in this incident,” says Carandang, who says she was moved to write a letter to the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) to express her dismay over the episode, and her concern for the mental and emotional health of Jan-Jan and that of his family.

“If people are to learn anything from it, it is that actions have consequences and that adults have to take responsibility for their actions. If we let this pass, then we can be sure that it will happen again—and again.”

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BELOVED AMONG the mental health community, an outspoken advocate of children’s rights and dignity, and author of several books, Carandang says many of the more egregious violations of the rights of children—including subjecting them to ridicule, public humiliation and name-calling—are done not necessarily out of malice or intent, but because parents and other adults “do not know they are inflicting harm on the child.”

In her book “Self-Worth and the Filipino Child,” Carandang observes that “children are disempowered in our society….Let us not underestimate the impact of how we discipline them, the way we talk to and regard them.” Which is why, she says, she would want for her or a team of psychologists to talk not just to Jan-Jan but to his parents and relatives as well, to process how they arrived at the idea that it was right to teach a young boy to dance lewdly in public, and that it was justified because he was going to be paid.

When she counsels children who were sexually abused but were not paid, and children who were sexually abused and prostituted, Carandang says she has a much harder time with the prostituted children “because the signals are mixed. They are angry about the abuse, but at the same time, they feel a little pride because they were able to help their families. It is very difficult for them to deal with these confusing messages.”

As it is with families, so is it with the nation, she believes. As she concludes “Self-Worth and the Filipino Child”: “There is a change badly needed in the family, but it is so subtle sometimes that we cannot see it. The answer is parenting with mindfulness, paying attention to what we are doing, asking questions about what we are doing, and knowing the right alternatives to what we are doing wrong.

“Discipline, dignity, and self-worth are the best gifts we can give to our children. Not coincidentally, these are also what our country needs most today.”

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THERE ARE other forms of child abuse that call for action not just from parents and families or society, but from states and the international community.

One of these is the use of children as armed or unarmed combatants, part of the general impact of armed conflict on children, whom the United Nations considers “the primary victims of armed conflict.”

Visiting Manila recently was Radhika Coomaraswamy, special representative of the UN Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict, who visited the country to follow-up on earlier efforts to get various parties to agree to an “Action Plan” designed to rescue and protect children caught in situations of violence.

More specifically, said Coomaraswamy, she was here to meet with representatives of the AFP, the NDF and the MILF, as well as the Office of the Presidential Assistant on the Peace Process (which coordinated her trip), the Department of National Defense, the DSWD and the NGO Plan International to see how the agreements forged could be implemented and monitored.

Currently, efforts are underway to get an accurate count of the number of child soldiers, and to identify their families and communities. “We need to use our imagination in implementing the re-entry policy,” says the UN official, adding that she is aware of the need to work with the communities where the children come from and provide them with basic needs like water, sanitation, health facilities, infrastructure, power and schools.

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ASKED ABOUT the hostage situation in Agusan, where an armed group led by and composed of teens kidnapped a group of teachers and students, Coomaraswamy said that while she has not been fully apprised of the situation, she knows there is a Juvenile Justice Law in place and she is confident that the young kidnappers, once they are brought to justice, will receive “the special protection of the law.”

Currently, the Philippines belongs to a “List of Shame,” 22 “situations of concern” in which “grave violations are taking place” and where efforts are being made to shield any more children from the harm arising from their situation.