Notre Dame-Siena College of Polomolok

Polomolok, South Cotabato0

Service Education Department
Teacher Education Program
Professional Education Program

CRITIQUE AND REFLECTION PAPERS

In partial fulfillment for requirements

Of the course ED 210
(Child and Adolescent Development)

Submitted by:
Roxan E. Gayas

Submitted to:
MARIA RUFINA M. PONO
Course Facilitator

Date: July 27, 2019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDMLiUvAan4&t=341s

I. CRITIQUE PAPER
Minors being held at a juvenile detention center. Officially called "Houses of Hope", proponents

in the Philippines say such facilities are places for reformation and education, but critics warn

they are underfunded and weakly supervised. The news article talks about what are the situation

of some children inside the “Houses of Hope” where the children think that is the right place for

them to treat better than their home but the truth is the children there is experiencing child abuse,

sexual abuse etc.

At some point, I agree that law already provides guidelines on how children who commit crimes

should be handled. Children who commit serious offenses are held accountable. But instead of

receiving harsh punishments, the child is placed in a youth care facility or Bahay Pag-Asa to

undergo intensive intervention programs supervised by a multi-disciplinary team. Having one

social worker for every children, providing one bed per resident along with nutritious meals,

clothing, toiletries and rehabilitation programs.

I disagree to lower the age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 12 because the juvenile justice

system is already struggling to cope with children in conflict with the law and rehabilitation

facilities are sorely lacking and it will harm to the children.

In conclusion, Due to lack of youth care facilities, children will most likely end up in jails where

they may be subjected to violence and abuse. Children who are exploited and driven by adults to

commit crimes need to be protected. Instead of criminalizing children, the government should

demand accountability, Children deserve free education, adequate healthcare access, and shelter.

II. REFLECTION PAPER

Before I research the news article from online sources that is related to the topic on Rights of the

Filipino Children/Situation of Filipino Children I feel so excited and have eagerness at the same

time to know what is really happening or the situation of the Filipino Children nowadays.

While I’m doing my research, I feel sad because what I’ve known about Philippines youth

detention homes described as hellholes. Former wards recall the sexual and physical abuse, they

endured while living in those overcrowded facilities.

And after that, what I’ve read and seen from the news article it feels so horrible to know that the

children are getting tough and children are treated like cage animals.

What I’ve think/learn during my research is children have been abused and exploited. They

suffer from hunger and homelessness, work in harmful conditions, deficient health care and

limited opportunities for basic education, a child need not live such a life. Childhood can

and must be preserved. Children have the right to survive, develop, be protected and participate

in decisions that impact their lives. Their childhood should be joyful and loving.

In this research what I intend to do with Learning is in order to make children not experience

sent to a youth detention Centre where some of the children experience the sexual abuse, or

before they think to commit a crime, parents try to understand his/her children. Learn how kids

behave and what they can do at different ages.  Make sure that everybody feels important and

cared for through parenting interventions, family interventions, and early childhood education.

Critics slam youth homes as ‘hellholes’

 PHILIPPINES
 Tuesday, 23 Jul 2019


Manila: Eleven-year-old Jerry’s crime was breaking curfew laws after fleeing violence at home.
His punishment? Being sent to a youth detention centre, where he says he endured sexual abuse.
Officially called “Houses of Hope”, proponents in the Philippines say such facilities are places
for reformation and education, but critics slam many of them as “hellholes” where children are
treated like caged animals.
Rights’ groups say Jerry should never have been detained under current laws, but warn a
proposed Bill to lower the age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 12, will mean thousands
more children will be sent to overcrowded and underfunded centres – leaving them vulnerable to
mistreatment.
“I felt so dirty. That was the first time it happened to me,” Jerry said as he recalled the night he
was pulled from his bed, forced to the bathroom and attacked by older boys at a decaying centre
in Manila.
But charities say younger vulnerable children from troubled homes, like Jerry, are sometimes
swept up in the dragnet even for minor misdemeanours and struggle to recover from the
experience.
Watchdogs and former wards warn planned legislation to criminalise children as young as 12 and
then detain them with older teens and in some cases adults will put those least able to defend
themselves at risk.
“There is a higher potential for abuse because the government is not prepared,” said Melanie
Ramos-Llana of Child Rights Network Philippines.
“You put more children into Houses of Hope which are not equipped, lack personnel and
programmes, you will have problems.”
Youth advocate Louise Suamen warns mixing youngsters who have committed minor
infringements with older criminals could create a “school of crime”.
“If a child is subjected to this environment, they can learn violence or abusive behaviour. If they
(government) want to change something ... treat detention as the last resort,” said Suamen of
Bahay Tuluyan Foundation.
A Bill to give authorities the power to prosecute younger children stalled in the session of the
legislature that wrapped up last month.
But it is a key plank of President Rodrigo Duterte’s tough-on-crime stance. However, critics
insist conditions in many of the facilities are identical to or worse than the jails adults are sent to.
“Children are detained in these so-called House of Hope like animals in cages,” said Father Shay
Cullen, president of Preda Foundation.“These are really hellholes of subhuman conditions,” he
added.
All the boys are identified using a pseudonym because they are minors or were when held.
Justin, who was 17 when he was brought to a youth centre in the capital in 2017, said other boys
beat him on the pretext he had broken house rules.
“They would punch us in the chest, stomach and sometimes the chin. It was so painful. I learnt to
be callous there because of what they did to me,” he said.
Tristan, 15, was relieved when he was transferred to a House of Hope in Manila after being held
in an adult jail on a drug trafficking charge he said police fabricated.
“I thought it would be a lovely home. But it was also a prison, a prison for children,” he said.
The Department of Social Welfare and Development said it didn’t monitor peer abuse in centres,
but institutions that failed to meet standards should be “held responsible”. — AFP
TAGS / KEYWORDS: Philippines

Read more at https://www.thestar.com.my/news/regional/2019/07/23/critics-slam-youth-homes-

as-hellholes/#Q78Z0SEHEOALxWRq.99

Freud said that it is at this stage of development that the child develops the feeling of acceptance.

Hence the relationship between the mother and the child is key.