Nathaniel Marcelo

POS 100 A
Reflection Paper

Lowering minimum age of criminal responsibility

To be straight to the point, my answer is no. As an introduction, it is important to first

lay out the facts on what the government is trying to implement, why they are trying to
implement it, and how it can help. Aljazeera, a reputable news outlet, mentioned that the
Philippine government’s rationale on why they plan to lower the age case was because of the
growing number of syndicates using children to their dirty work for petty crimes (and
sometimes bigger ones). If a child under 15 gets caught, the usual case is for them to be
released with no form of responsibility. In that situation, I understand the frustrations the
government has. It is a “loophole” in the law that cannot be solved without proper reform.
Although, my problem is how they plan to respond to that problem. The same source
mentions how lowering the age minimum can help. “"If you have a law that will criminalize
this particular age bracket, they will no longer be used by criminals [in their illegal acts].
They are using them now because they will be freed, they can get out. Now, this is the
purpose of the president [to counter that]," Duterte said.

These were the facts given by the administration, but I think it’s also important to lay
out other circumstances that they forget to take into consideration (ehem war on drugs). Let’s
start first with a bit of scientific facts. This is important because scientific facts cannot be
disputed by saying “fake news.” In a psychological perspective, UNICEF reported that kids’
maturity when it comes to discernment only happens at around 16 years old. In addition to
that, an even more controversial topic is when does it actually fully form? A study by the
University of Rochester posted an article stating that “The rational part of a teen’s brain isn’t
fully developed and won’t be until age 25 or so.” Their recent studies has determined that
fully formed adult brains and developing teen brains work significantly different. Adults
think with the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s rational part. This is the part of the brain that
responds to situations with good judgment and an awareness of long-term consequences.
Teens process information with the amygdala. This is the emotional part. Without even
thinking about scientific facts, this is a pretty logical way of looking at how people from
different ages think. Kids and teens tend to be more emotional to certain situation just from
understanding that maturity takes time. I myself would not call myself fully mature even at
the age of 21. We all have different paces, and it is dangerous to just think that there is a
universal age in which we can just say that this person is mature enough.

We are not supposed to treat kids the way we treat “adults” just from the simple fact
that we’re literally and scientifically supposed to make mistakes as people. Without mistakes,
you cannot learn. With that, let’s say they still push through with the bill and actually put kids
in jail. Will they have the same prison cells as adults? Will they go through the same daily
life as adult criminals? What will happen to the mental development of a child being in this
kind of environment? We cannot also predict what older criminals might do to these kids.
Imagine the trauma that these kids will face. How will these traumas affect the mental
development of a child? It was mentioned that certain cases might lead up to 25 years
maximum in prison. What will happen once he gets released? It’s not easy to say “oh, at least
he learned his lesson.” There will be violent reactions that come with growing up in prison,
and we don’t have a proper response to that. These are things that the administration did not
take into consideration because they of course did not think this through.

In terms of the law, there was a bill that was signed named the RA 9344 or the
Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act (JJWA). This basically talk about how it upholds the basic
principle that a child must not be treated as an adult. The Philippines even signed and ratified
the bill by adding “the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special
safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before, as well as after birth.” As
an LM student, I know that a child cannot enter into a contract because of his/her inability to
independently make fully rational decisions. Why is it that there is a high minimum age for
marriage, and other contracts, but for crimes, we have to lower them. To put kids in prison is
such a big step that can be changed into more appropriate alternatives. The first thing I can
think of is rehabilitation and proper welfare development of a child. This sounds very
reminiscent of the war on drugs where rehabilitation is the solution. Well, that’s because it is.
These people, be it criminals, drug addicts, or whatever are victims of their environment,
which has a much bigger root problem.

I personally think that people only steal because of their need to survive due to the
fact that the pressure of poverty has enabled them to do such a thing. We’re only talking
about people in general, what about kids? They are talked into doing these things. These
aren’t crimes that they willfully do because they want to, but they have to. These are victims,
and victims should not be treated as criminals. Victims need intervention and rehabilitation,
not detention and punishment.

Lowering the minimum age is a very surface level way of solving the problem.
Without putting too much on the more scientific data and social studies, I’d just like to give a
very blunt opinion on how the government thinks. This administration has a very knee jerk
reaction to any problem that sadly many Filipinos also succumb to. It’s a very straight line
way of dealing with things by just putting people in prison. Hypothetically speaking, even if
lowering the minimum age gets denied, I fear that this government will face another situation
similar to what we just talked about and make another negligent solution. This will lead to
more controversy and will just be another repetitive cycle of incoherent thinking by our
incompetent leaders.

References:

UNICEF. “Lowering the Age of Criminal Responsibility Is against Child Rights: UNICEF.”
Home Page, 18 Jan. 2019, www.unicef.org/philippines/press-releases/lowering-age-criminal-
responsibility-against-child-rights-unicef.

Schiefelbein, Mark. “Philippines Moves to Lower Criminal Liability Age to Nine.” News | Al
Jazeera, Al Jazeera, 22 Jan. 2019, www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/01/philippines-moves-
criminal-liability-age-190122080333504.html.

Global Youth Collective. “Why lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility is false
compromise.” Amnesty International, 28 Feb. 2019,
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2019/02/why-lowering-the-minimum-age-of-
criminal-responsibility-is-false-compromise/
BusinessMirror, et al. “Unicef to PHL: Don't Lower Age of Criminal Responsibility.”
BusinessMirror, 19 May 2019, businessmirror.com.ph/2019/05/20/unicef-to-phl-dont-lower-
age-of-criminal-responsibility/.