A fresh wave of violence inside a Philippine campus has pushed Senator Robin Padilla to once again press for tougher accountability rules covering young offenders, with the senator reviving his stalled proposal to amend the country’s juvenile justice law.
The renewed appeal came hours after a shooting tore through San Jose National High School in Tacloban City on Monday morning, June 22. Authorities reported that three people were killed and several others wounded when gunfire erupted inside the campus at around 9 a.m. Police took two suspects into custody, both of them minors, with one identified as a 15-year-old Grade 9 student of the same school. According to Rappler, the second suspect was apprehended after residents of the San Jose district stepped in to help authorities; the Manila Tribune reported he later signaled an intent to surrender through the 911 hotline.
At the center of Padilla’s push is Senate Bill No. 372, which seeks to amend Republic Act No. 9344, or the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of 2006. The measure would strip the criminal liability exemption from offenders aged 10 to 17 in cases involving heinous crimes — a category that covers offenses such as murder, rape, kidnapping with killing or rape, robbery with homicide, destructive arson, and serious drug violations. Under current law, the minimum age of criminal responsibility stands at 15.
The senator tied his appeal to a recent legislative win, expressing hope that lawmakers would act with similar urgency on his own bill. “Maraming salamat nga po pala sa pagpasa ng waling-waling na co-author po ako… In shaa Allah ay maging ganyan din po kabilis ang pagtugon sa panukala ko para naman sa kaligtasan ng kabataan at ng taumbayan,” he said, referring to Senate Bill No. 2092 declaring the waling-waling as the national orchid, which the chamber approved on third and final reading on June 17.
Padilla, who first filed the measure in July 2025, has argued that today’s children are more exposed to risk-taking behavior and that the existing framework fails to deliver justice to victims and their families. He has framed the proposal as restorative rather than punitive, insisting that minors charged with lesser offenses would still be routed to intervention programs and placed in Bahay Pag-Asa facilities while their cases proceed.
The proposal has drawn sustained opposition since it surfaced. The Child Rights Network has maintained that the real failing lies in the weak enforcement of RA 9344 rather than in the age threshold itself, arguing that all children who break the law are already held accountable under the statute. Lawmakers including Akbayan’s Chel Diokno and Kabataan’s Renee Co have warned that jailing children as young as 10 would expose them to further harm, contending that the law was never a free pass for young people to commit crimes.
