This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. V, No. 36, October 16-22, 2005
Slow Justice for Detained Children
by Mylene Buensuceso,
Ronald Caraig, Likha Cuevas, and Jenielle Marie Enojo Alvin (not his real
name) was incarcerated for 6 months for his alleged crime of shoplifting a
200-ml shampoo worth P89 ($1.59, based on an exchange rate of P55.83 per US
dollar) from a big grocery store. In another municipal jail, a child was
imprisoned for three years because he allegedly stole a tomato from a vendor in
a wet market. The alleged crimes
committed are often not commensurate to the penalties given to the convicted
CICL, according to studies and NGOs handling children in conflict with the law (CICL).
As illustrated by the
SCUK-Phils study (see Table), the penalties for stolen property in the RPC of
1932 (still being followed today) are outdated and these should be reviewed. For
example, a stolen property worth more than P5 but less than P50 would be enough
to jail a person for one month and one day up to six months. However, children
interviewed for this report said that they do not understand why they are jailed
for so long. They are not briefed regarding the penalties that apply to their
cases. Another reason for the long
detention of the CICL in youth homes and jails is the postponement of hearings.
One CICL said his hearings were postponed six times because the complainant did
not appear. A study conducted by
Psychological Trauma and Human Rights Program – Center for Integrative and
Development Studies of the University of the Philippines (UP CITS-PST) revealed
that CICL also had to keep on waiting for the presiding judge to arrive. There
was a time when hearings stopped because the judge resigned. The CICL was
already more than 18 years old when the hearings finally resumed.
Computation errors Dashell Yancha also said
that there are errors in the computation of penalties for these CICL. One CLRD
staff lawyer had an argument with the fiscal over the computation of sentence
done by the presiding RTC judge. The fiscal did not want to correct the judge
because he might be cited for contempt of court. One example of the errors
in the computation of the sentences is when the court did not deduct the time
the child was detained in jail (preventive imprisonment) from the total sentence
that the child should serve (Art. 29 of the RPC) There was an instance when
the child was detained for a year and the sentence he was supposed to serve is
two years. However, that CICL still had to serve the two-year sentence because
the court neglected to deduct his stay in jail before his conviction.
To make things easier, PAO
lawyers convince the children to plead guilty rather than take the risk of
getting a very long stay in jails or in youth homes, Save the Children
UK-Philippines reported. Vilches admitted that there
are justifications to this practice. She stated that at any rate, convicted CICL
would not have records. “When they apply for work, they cannot be liable if they
say they were not convicted because under the law, his crime has been erased.
It's not that we recommend that but it's the most practical thing to do,” she
said. However, this practice is
questionable to human rights lawyers and advocates. Criminal justice system:
Road to a life of crime Lawyer Eric Henry Joseph
Mallonga said that children should not enter the criminal justice system. Once
the child is arrested, he is already “contaminated” for life. Child abuses
during arrest and detention has been documented by a number of NGOs and
volunteer lawyers. These abuses further aggravate the feelings of self-doubt,
loneliness, confusion, and low self-esteem among these children. Mallonga stressed that in
exposing these already vulnerable children to this system develop “tunnel
vision” among CICL. These children already see themselves as criminals and
therefore the only road that is available to them is a life of a criminal. ROR
helps but comes too late for the children already traumatized by the arrest and
detention. The solution, Mallonga
said, is to overhaul the criminal justice for children and, “supplant it with a
rights-oriented (child’s rights) system.” As one social worker said,
as long as there is poverty and the realities of the society he once belonged to
remained cruel, the life of a former CICL is never certain. As long as there is
poverty and the society is not sensitive to the rights of the child, there will
always be a child who will have a brush with the law. Bulatlat
Playground Behind Bars
Doing
Time in the Company of Hardened Criminals
© 2005 Bulatlat
■
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