President Duterte’s new cause celebre
Let me doff my hat to President Rodrigo Duterte for his stand on the criminal non-liability of persons 15 years old and below. He might have been unpresidential in calling Sen. Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan, the acknowledged principal author of the law that established a comprehensive juvenile justice system (RA 9344) names, but to me, the president has a good point, the harsh, even if valuable criticisms by his bashers notwithstanding.
I will start with what the Revised Penal Code, which took effect on January 1, 1932, in a part of its Article 12, provides. It exempts from criminal liability a person over nine years of age and under 15 unless he has acted with discernment. There was jurisprudence that presumed a minor under 15 years doing a criminal act to be acting without discernment. With that presumption, his exemption from criminal liability followed. But he still had to be criminally prosecuted and it was incumbent upon the prosecution to prove that he acted with discernment, only failing which the minor would be considered exempt.
An ancient Supreme Court ruling defined, in essence, discernment as the mental capacity of a minor committing an act prohibited by law to understand the difference between right and wrong.
In the year 2006, RA No. 9344, was approved. This law, enacted some 84 years after the Revised Penal Code took effect, provides that “a child 15 years of age or under at the time of the commission of the offense shall be exempt from criminal liability”. This new statute changed the old law. Whereas youthful offenders within that age range could be hailed to court and punished under the penal code, the new law exempts them. This change saw the upsurge of crimes committed by minor offenders but who could not be held accountable for their acts. A horrifying highlight was shown on television recently when a group of young boys and girls, mostly aged 14, assaulted a septuagenarian who refused to give up his bag. The old man was dragged out of the jeepney he was riding and tackled until he fell on the sidewalk with companion minors continually jeering. Were they without discernment? My goodness!
President Duterte is rightfully alarmed by the rising statistics of criminality involving minors. He might be perceived to rule this country with calculated ruthlessness but his hands are tied in running after these criminally-exempt youthful offenders. Our police, feared for their bloody implementation of “tokhang”, are daunted. They arrest these minors, many of whom found to be controlled by hard-core criminals, only to release them upon clarifying their minority. This obvious circus disturbs public peace and foments disorder. To correct this apparently-absurd situation, the president wants the “Pangilinan Law” amended if not repealed.
President Duterte has good reason, anchoring his harangue against the Pangilinan’s law. It is clear to the president that a 15-yer-old kid half a century ago was innocent compared to his modern counterpart. There were no attractive gadgetries like cell phones, less temptations that the internet can now generate, and fewer known vices like illegal drugs. A teenager then was not conscious of the many worldly ways that would otherwise push him to do misdeeds.
A present-day youngster, fed and informed by advanced technology and transported by fast cars and jets, comes of age earlier than his older counterpart. He matures early. At 12, he has the mind of a 15-year-old boy. He listens to radio, watches television, goes dating in movies, and reads newspapers, things scarce to the youth 50 years ago. There are schools even in places where there were none before. This early development of the young generation was one of the compelling reasons why 21, the age of majority in the Civil Code, effective in 1950, was lowered to 18 by the Family Code of 1987. Our president, who follows this argument, is therefore correct. May our legislature take cue and may the minds critical to the president harken to reason.
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