by Father Shay Cullen
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[Photo from Preda website]
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Andres is just one 10-year-old child and he has lived on the streets of Metro Manila most of his life, like thousands of other street children. They are abandoned, work as scavengers, market boys or girls and are vulnerable to sexual and physical abuse by adults. They are uneducated and without family or social welfare, care and protection. They are completely vulnerable to the influence of those who can give them food or money.
Andres was a survivor. He worked as a scavenger collecting plastic bottles and other pieces of junk to sell in order to buy enough food for the day. But it was never enough. He only knew he had to get food and anything he did to survive was the right thing for him to do. He didn’t get enough scraps one day and he saw a cell phone on a vendor’s tray at the market and he took it. He sold it and bought food. Andres, like most children, didn’t know if this was right or wrong. The moral or legal issues were not a reality for him. He was just hungry. He was arrested by the barangay tanod (village guard) and charged with theft. Was he a criminal?
There is a majority of Filipinos who say, ‘No, he is not’. The Philippine Congress on two previous occasions said he is not. There are now voices of the police and local district officials who blame children as young as nine years of age as notorious criminals and they say that children should be treated as criminals. They are trying to persuade congressional representatives to amend the law and to lower the minimum age of criminal liability of Filipino children from 15 to nine years of age. They think that a child should be allowed to go without any intervention to help him/her know right from wrong. The law directs that help and intervention be given for children in conflict with the law. This lowering of the age of criminal liability would be detrimental to children and should not be changed.
Full article on Preda website here.