Senator Robinhood Padilla is pushing for a controversial change in the country’s juvenile justice law by proposing to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 10 years old, specifically for those accused of heinous crimes.
In his unnumbered bill seeking to amend the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of 2006 (RA 9344), Padilla aims to remove the blanket exemption from criminal liability currently granted to minors aged 10 to 17, particularly when the offense involves grave and violent acts.
Under the existing law, children aged 15 and below are not held criminally liable. Padilla’s measure would change that by making 10 the new threshold, and further removes protections for those under 18 when accused of heinous crimes such as murder, rape, parricide, kidnapping with rape or homicide, destructive arson, and violations of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act punishable by more than 12 years in prison.
The proposed bill also limits certain restorative justice provisions in the current law. For instance, community-based intervention programs and automatic suspension of sentences would now only apply to minors who commit non-heinous offenses.
“While we make it clear that our thrust is to ensure that youth offenders are dealt with through the lens of restorative and not punitive justice, we must guarantee the integrity of our justice system remains and that we do not condone a more precarious state of abuse towards our children,” Padilla emphasized in his explanatory note.
He further pointed out that the existing law “remains unresponsive, if not completely remiss in exacting justice, from juvenile offenses to heinous crimes.”
If passed, children aged 10 and above accused of heinous crimes would no longer be automatically placed in Bahay Pag-asa facilities, but instead could face criminal prosecution depending on the severity of the offense.
