House bill protecting minor delinquents OK’d

The justice committee of the House of Representatives has approved a bill that seeks to protect minors or children below 18 years who have had brushes with the law.

Among the salient points of the proposed Comprehensive Juvenile Justice System approved by the panel of former justice secretary Simeon Datumanong are the creation of an Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention under the Department of Justice and a shift in focus from punishment to the rehabilitation of youthful offenders.

The bill has won the backing of Dr. Nicholas Alipui, United Nations Children Fund (Unicef) representative to the Philippines.

"This is just one of the many steps that are urgently required to obtain justice in the Philippines," he said. "I urge all lawmakers to give this issue their highest priority. Thousands of children in jail are subjected daily to violence and trauma."

The bill is one of the major pieces of unfinished business in the government’s process of complying with the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Under the "child-sensitive justice system" envisioned by the bill, detention will be used as a penalty of "last resort for juveniles in conflict with the law."

A goal of the bill is to ensure the "rehabilitation and reintegration" of youthful offenders "into their families and as productive members of their communities."

The bill proposes to adopt the concept of restorative justice, an "approach to crime that emphasizes the ways in which crime hurts relationships in a community" and calls for "the maximum involvement of the victim, the offender and the community."

The bill also calls for the establishment of "separate facilities for minors" and "youth detention homes in local government."