Issues Arising in Amending Existing Law: The Passing of House Bill No.

8858 in the
Philippines

By: Carlito Dacumos and Karen Abrogar

Introduction

One of the most alarming problems that nations nowadays is facing is the continuous
involvement of juveniles in various crimes and observed to be increasing over the past several
years (The National Academies of Sciences, 2001). The term “Juvenile” in law is used in
reference to anyone at age 18 or below the age of legality prescribed in every state (Reuters, n.d).

In our country, juvenile offenders is one of the serious headaches of the government for
years. In fact, since 1995, 52,756 children were involved in various criminal acts and were
imprisoned and rehabilitated (UNICEF Philippines, n.d). Moreover, between 2012 and 2015
alone almost 40,000 cases of juveniles were recorded based from the Philippine National Police
(Philippine Daily Inquirer, 2018). As response various efforts and the creation of law setting the
age from 18 to 15 years old subjected for interventions in law through Republic Act 9344 known
as Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of 2006 were made (Cepeda, 2019). This law was later
amended by R.A 10630 which emphasizes on the strong implementation, intervention and
rehabilitation programs in relation to the juveniles who commit serious criminal acts (Business
Mirror, 2016).

However, for some lawmakers the amendment wasn’t enough as juveniles were still
associated with various crimes and even worst were used by drug syndicates as accessories in
their illegal operations for they were aware that juveniles under 15 years old were not punishable
by law. This led to the creation of the above mentioned bill which aims to set the minimum age
of responsibility from 15 to 12 years old to stop the syndicates from using the minors (Ilias,
2016). Unfortunately, this move was criticized and viewed differently by various organizations
emphasizing it was an act of violation of human rights while the government and different
government agencies favored the said bill. Hence, this paper aims to study the possible
implications of this bill in relation to the recidivism theory and other sociological theories to
juveniles to better understand the issue and come up with a firm conclusion regarding the issue
on House Bill No. 8858.

LITERATURE

Theoretical View

On a theoretical perspective, recidivism theory is being considered by some organization

opposing House Bill No. 8858. Recidivism refers to a case where someone kept on doing
criminal act after being imprisoned and penalized. Under this theory, age has been an important
factor in recidivism which has an opposing connection to the bill who believes lowering the age
of social responsibility will prevent children from doing criminal acts and repeating it for this
theory emphasizes that the younger the age of the offender is penalized, the more likely he or she
will do it again and stated that juveniles are the most frequent recidivist (Cole, M., n.d.).

Moreover, this theory also provided factors that contribute to recidivism, one of which is
the failure of program (Cole, M., n.d) which is also a problem in the existing Juvenile law as
youth care facilities and staffs were outnumbered in most Bahay Pag-asa facilities (Cabico,
2019). Aside from that, this fact also led to an assumption that these offenders might be jailed
instead along with adult criminals who might directly influence these young offenders from re-
offending (Change.Org, 2019).

In relation to that assumption, Edwin Sutherland’s differential association theory

discusses that illegal behavior can be acquired when a person interacts with people who have that
kind of behavior. (Bernard, n.d). It was further stated that if a person associate himself or herself
with delinquents, he or she will perceive it as normal. Thus, the cycle of doing criminal acts will
continue.

Furthermore, Goodwin’s behavioral theory, states that the environment plays a significant
part in the development of criminal behavior (as cited in Tica, 2014). If an individual is to be
placed in an unhealthy environment like prison cells, then that individual becomes accustomed to
his or her environment and starts to develop certain behaviors associated with his or her
surroundings. With respect to the outnumbered “Bahay Pag-asa” facilities in the Philippines, the
assumption of putting minors in jail would be an impending threat to the future of those children
as they would be put in the same place with adult criminals.

BODY

Who were considered Juveniles?

According to Free Advice Legal, Juveniles means persons ages under 18 and above 10
years old however, age brackets of whom to be considered as juveniles varies in every state as it
may be as lower as 9 years old. In the Philippines, persons ages under 18 years old and 12 years
old as considered the age of consent were classified as juveniles (Santos, A, 2016) also known
as “minors” as another term to distinguish young persons (Free Advice Legal, n.d). Currently,
ages 15 - under 18 years old were subjected to criminal responsibility under R.A 9344 (Cepeda,
2019).

Juvenile Offenders Crime Rate

For years, the juvenile crime rate were significantly increasing since 2016 involving ages
9 to 18 years old (Macaraeg, P., 2019). In fact, according to the records of PNP-WCPC from
2016-2018, ages 9-11 years old committed most of the total juvenile offenders having been
associated for over 9,189 incidents. Most of these juvenile offenders committed physical injuries,
rape and robbery and were allegedly associated with syndicates being used as accessories for
illegal transactions (Macapagal, M., 2019).

“The lowering of Maximum Age of Social Responsibility” and the existing problems on
Juvenile Justice System

On January 28, 2019, majority of the legislators, 146 to be exact out of 181 lawmakers
who were present at the deliberation voted in favor of House Bill (HB) No. 8858 “An Act
Expanding the Scope of the Reformation and Rehabilitation of the Children in Conflict with the
Law and Strengthening the Social Reintegration Programs” to amend the Republic Act No. 9344
(Reganit, J. & Cervantes, F., 2019). The bill was formerly associated with the term “criminal
responsibility” which is referred as the age in which a person will be held responsible and
imprisoned for doing criminal acts, but because of the misconceptions and negative feedback of
the term, lawmakers replace it with “Social Responsibility” but did not state how it was different
(Cepeda M., 2019).

Under this bill, the maximum age of social liability will be lowered from 15 to 12 years
old, which means juveniles ages including 12-18 years old will be responsible for committing
serious crimes (Romero, A., 2019), he or she will undergo a process of rehabilitation and
intervention activities inside a “Bahay Pag-asa” (Reganit & Cervantes, 2019). In addition, the
Senate President Vicente Sotto III wanted to make it clear to everyone that this bill was created
in order to save the children from hands of drug syndicates and not to put young people in
prison.

However, despite the clean intention of this bill various organizations are in doubt on
some of the provisions of this bill considering the current issues of our present law regarding
juveniles in our country. Based on the records of the DSWD, about 10,515 children ages between
18 years old and below in 2014 were caught for petty crimes and ended being detained in jails
along with adult criminals (Buan, L. & Elemia, C., 2019). This is because to the absence of
Bahay Pag-asa in most areas (Change.Org, 2019). In fact, there were only 63 youth care facilities
in the country and 5 of which were not operational while a few of those operational were seen to
be even worse than a prison as it lacks intervention and rehabilitation programs, food, beds and
staff necessary in the standards of the existing law (Cabico, G., 2019). Furthermore, CHR
Commissioner Leah Tanodra Armamento have stated that 114 Bahay Pag-asa facilities were
intended to be built but only about half of the total number of facilities were finished. It was
further added that the current Bahay Pag-asa is far from meeting the standards because of the
lack of finance. (“Ilang grupo, eksperto pumalag sa panukalang pagbaba sa edad ng panangutan,”
2019). The local government have failed to build Bahay Pag-asa centers which were intended to
serve as formation centers for juveniles in conflict with the law. Also, regarding the problem
with drug syndicates, the government should put more emphasis in apprehending big time
syndicates rather than criminalizing young offenders. These made the house bill even more
controversial and continuously opposed by organizations promoting human rights as it may face
the same problems that might even become worse.
 As mentioned in Goodwin and Sutherland’s Theories and the Recidivism Theory, having
these insufficient facilities would mainly result to minors being put together with adult criminals
that lead to acquiring the adults’ illegal behavior which would likely cause the minors to offend
again. According to Dr. Liane Alampay of Philippine Psychological Association of the
Philippines, there is a great probability that young people will commit criminal acts again
especially that they are very vulnerable. Detaining juveniles and releasing them afterwards
would most probably contribute in their relapse into illegal behavior as supported by the
Recidivism Theory wherein age is an important factor in recidivism. Also, the said bill is not the
answer to the problem regarding young people being used by syndicates to do their crimes since
there are no studies yet that could prove it. (“Ilang grupo, eksperto pumalag sa panukalang
pagbaba sa edad ng panangutan,” 2019).

Furthermore, Senador Risa Hontiveros disapproved the bill lowering the age of social
responsibility as she believed that the best course of action in dealing with minors in violating
the law would be to give fund for refining RA 9344 and to seek help and support from different
organizations. The Commission on Human Rights has also the same stand in which they want the
government to put emphasis on the implementation of the RA 9344 for the rehabilitation and
intervention for minors violating the law. (“Ilang grupo, eksperto pumalag sa panukalang
pagbaba sa edad ng panangutan,” 2019).

FINDINGS

In this study we found out that juveniles as early as 9 years old were already in conflict
with the law and were significantly rising over the years leading to the creation of House Bill
8858 viewed as a prevention of juveniles from being used by syndicates and from committing
criminal offenses.

It was also discovered that the current law on Juvenile Justice and Welfare which is the
R.A 9344 is facing a lot of issues including the lack of rehabilitation facilities known as “Bahay
Pag-asa” which is a vital element to make this law effective. Also, it was found out through the
different news articles presented in this paper that some juveniles in conflict with the law were
detained along with the adults due to the absence of Bahay Pag-asa in some areas in the country
which made some private organizations and senators oppose the bill.

CONCLUSION

With all of these taken into account, H.B #8858 which aims to lower the age of legal
intervention is faced with many issues and its effectivity has been subjected to many queries.
Different organizations opposed the bill as it would result to minors being deprived of their
rights and their future.

The bill was created for a good cause, but it is subject for further studies to clarify the
uncertainties and misconceptions revolving around the bill. Scientific researches should be
conducted regarding the approximate age of penalizing a minor for a criminal act. There should
also be studies as to how children violating the law should be dealt with.

As a countermeasure, the current law on juvenile justice should be strengthen and must
be implemented effectively. The provisions under this Republic Act should be enhanced to better
protect the minors who are susceptible to crimes.
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APPENDICES