Lowering the age of Criminal liability and the
And the laws protecting children
Background
Lowering the age of criminal liability is the proposal to reduce the minimum age at which a
child can be held accountable for a crime. The issue of decreasing the age of criminal culpability
and child protection laws entails striking a careful balance between holding juveniles
accountable for their acts and protecting their rights as vulnerable individuals.
The minimum age of criminal liability in the Philippines is 15 years old, while In the United
States the criminal responsibility varies by state and as low as 6 years old in North Carolina and
12 years old in California, Massachusetts, and Utah. The criminal liability in the Philippines is
much higher than the other country. In another country like Canada young people can be held
responsible for a crime as young as 12 years old, and they can be imprisoned, while in the
Philippines you will only go to a government institution like DSWD (Department of Social
Welfare and Development).
According to the United Nation Children ‘s Foundation (UNICEF), there had been more than
50,000 young Filipino arrested and imprisoned since the year 1998. Most of the offenses
committed are robbery, theft, solvent abuse, and worse, murder. According to the Department of
Social and Welfare Development (DSWD), children with the age of 15 – 17 have the greatest
number of offenses committed amounting to 46.96%, followed by 18 years old and above
(19.05%) and 10 – 14 years old (9.17%) and lastly children with the age of 5 to 9 (0.64%).
Setting a particular age for criminal liability varies widely across different countries, but
international standards emphasize the importance of setting an appropriate minimum age to
ensure the fairness and protect the rights of children involved in the criminal justice system.
At the age 7, minors enter a stage where they are starting to understand the difference between
right and wrong. Children around age 10 start to understand that breaking rule will lead to
punishment. However, despite of being aware of what is right and wrong, they still tend to
engage with the things that is considered unlawful or in other words they still do the things that
can result to punishment. In the Philippines, for example, some young people ages 18 below tend
to do crimes even though they understand the potential punishment.
These minors tend to take advantage of the law (RA) 9344 also known as the juvenile justice and
welfare act, this law aims to promote rehabilitation of the children rather than punishing them.
Since the minor in the Philippines are aware that they will not face imprisonment, they still
engage with the act of wrong doing repeatedly. That’s why some governments, in answer to
concerns about juvenile misbehavior, particularly violent acts, have recommended reducing the
MACR, believing that younger offenders should face adult criminal penalties.
As a result, there are some senators who proposed for lowering of criminal liability in the
Philippines from 15 years old to 12 years old.
On January 22, 2019 Senate President Vicente Sotto III, who has a pending bill seeking to lower
the age of criminal liability to at least 12 years, said his proposed age is the common threshold in
most countries (Sotto, 2019). This proposed bill met a lot of criticism from people and some
organizations. UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) said that lowering the age of criminal
responsibility is an act of violence against children. Children in conflict with the law are already
victims of circumstance, mostly because of poverty and exploitation by adult crime syndicates.
Children who are exploited and driven by adults to commit crimes need to be protected, not
further penalized. Instead, they should be given a second chance to reform and to rehabilitate.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) emphasizes the importance of
treating minors with dignity and prioritizing rehabilitation, particularly those under the age of 18
(UNCRC, 1989).
That’s why we have (RA) 9344, this republic act aims to protect the rights of the children who
have a conflict with the law or also known as Child in Conflict with the Law (CICL) and Child at
Risk (CAR) under the restorative justice and welfare system in our country.
There is a lot of arguments going on in this topic some people argue that lowering the age of
criminal liability is going to protect the children from being used by some drug syndicates. On
the other hand, others argue that the children is already victims of circumstance and should be
protected, not further penalized. Lowering the age of criminal liability could have a lot of
negative impact to the children, it could lead them to dropping out of school, and it also failed to
protect the rights of the children. The only advantage of lowering the age of criminal liability is
that it supports the government’s effort to prevent crime across the country. The central question
is whether lowering the age of criminal responsibility would truly improve public safety and
reduce juvenile crime, or whether it would undermine juvenile justice systems' rehabilitation-
focused goals, potentially violating children's rights and exacerbating long-term harm.
