MANILA — The Coalition to Stop Child Detention Through Restorative Justice
debunks claims by President Arroyo that children no longer suffer
imprisonment with adult crime suspects in filthy police jails in
violation of international human rights law (PGMA wants youth
offenders to continue studies, engage in livelihood, Office of the
President, released May 7, 2007). The President should officially
acknowledge the existence of these ghost children prisoners who lurk
in the shadows of police dungeons especially in Metro Manila and major
urban centers, without official acknowledgment, transparency and
accountability.
Contrary to Arroyo’s misleading claims, the establishment of CRADLE
and the passage of Republic Act 9344 or the Juvenile Justice and
Welfare Act of 2006, while laudable to some extent, never eliminated a
wit the phenomenon of children of the poorest of the poor suffering
human rights violations in the hands of the police. These children
languish in police headquarters, stations, and substations under the
sole and exclusive authority of the Philippine National Police pending
inquest proceedings undertaken by the Department of Justice and while
awaiting court-issued commitment orders. They are separate and
distinct from children previously confined under Bureau of Jail
Management and Penology custody in city and municipal jails. Until
now, the government has yet to officially acknowledge and stop this
egregious practice of police child detention and torture,
notwithstanding protests aired by the UN Committee on the Rights of
the Child and the UN Human Rights Committee against this inhumanity.
Truth is, as a matter of state norm and practice, the PNP criminally
persists in hauling off children to police jails all over the country,
save for Cebu City. This brazen violation of the Special Child
Protection Act [RA 7610 Article VI(10)(a)], the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights [Article 10(2)(b)], and the Convention
on the Rights of the Child [Article 37(c)] occurs with the President’s
criminal neglect, if not tacit approval and acquiescence. For her
refusal and failure to stop this barbarity, the President is
ultimately liable for this monstrosity on account of the principle of
command responsibility.
Notwithstanding CRADLE and RA 9344, the BJMP and the Department of
Social Welfare and Development routinely refuse to assume custody over
children accused of violating the law (CAVL) unless police officers
produce commitment orders issued by the courts. BJMP and DSWD have
long been justifying this anti-child practice of admitting to their
custody only children with court-issued commitment orders by citing
their own manual of internal policies and procedures, ignoring the
legally binding Special Child Protection Act (RA 7610) and the
country’s treaty obligations. Such BJMP, DSWD, and PNP practice,
however, conspire in condemning children to perpetually suffer abuses,
e.g., tattooing, torture, and sexual abuse, in the hands of the police
and adult crime suspects during police detention. Never mind if it
takes eons of time for the commitment order to be delivered to DSWD
and/or BJMP. This tedious process begins with police paperwork that
goes through evaluation by the prosecutors, and eventually winds up in
snail-paced and backlog-ridden courts, then back again to the police,
at the expense of children traumatized and brutalized during police
incarceration in the interim.
Even children under the care of CRADLE had been hapless victims of
police imprisonment in the company of adult crime suspects under
subhuman conditions prior to their transfer to CRADLE at the behest of
family court judges. More children will continue to suffer from this
institutionalized violence unless the President observes in good faith
the letter and spirit of the law by requiring DSWD and BJMP to assume
custody over CAVL even without court orders.
The Coalition, composed of at least 25 organizations, renews its call
for President Arroyo to abrogate the DSWD and BJMP anti-child
requirement for the police to produce court-issued commitment orders
as a condition to admitting CAVL into their custody. Rather, police
officers should be allowed to immediately turn over, at the precise
point of arrest, to CRADLE and other DSWD and/or BJMP facilities all
children accused of violating the law without further need of
court-issued commitment orders that proves prejudicial to their best
interests. This way, the long-standing practice of police child
detention and its concomitant evils would be cast into oblivion.
Reference:
Atty. Perfecto Caparas
Convener
Coalition to Stop Child Detention Through Restorative Justice
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