EXPLAINER: Why child offender law prioritizes rehabilitation over punishment

MANILA, Philippines — For a clinical and forensic psychologist, crime should not be viewed simply as a characterological flaw, but as the product of a myriad of personal, historical, sociopolitical and psychological factors.

Adrian Rigor, a faculty member of the Ateneo de Manila University Department of Psychology, told the Inquirer that “there is rarely a single reason why a child commits a crime,” stressing that “we have to consider multiple interacting factors.”

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These factors, he said, may include childhood experiences, such as abuse, neglect or exposure to violence; family environment; poverty; peer influence; gang recruitment; school disengagement; mental health concerns; substance use; and neurodevelopmental or behavioral disorders.

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Rigor said a child’s level of understanding of the nature and consequences of their actions also has to be considered, pointing out that a crime is not simply determined by whether the person who committed it is good or bad.

Rigor said this as debates on lowering the age of criminal responsibility intensified after the fatal shooting at a school in Tacloban City on Monday, June 22, by two students who are just 14 and 15 years old.

The incident left three students dead and 20 others wounded.

READ: School shooting kills 3 students in Tacloban

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As a psychologist, Rigor expressed concern over the online rhetoric on the supposed criminal liability of the shooters, with some saying that the age of criminal responsibility should be lowered from 15 to 10.

READ: Number of wounded due to Tacloban school shooting now at 20

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This suggestion, however, would mean treating children as culpable as adults when committing crimes and subjecting them to the same measures of the law.

Rigor explained that Republic Act No. 9344, or the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act, which is now at the center of debates, does not excuse criminal behavior or remove accountability.

“Rather, it recognizes that children are still developing and that addressing these underlying factors is more effective in preventing repeat offenses than relying on punishment alone,” he said. “That is precisely why the law emphasizes rehabilitation alongside accountability.”

Understanding the law

As provided by the law, children 15 years old and below at the time of the offense are exempt from criminal liability, while children who are below 18 but not younger than 15 may be held criminally liable if found to have acted with discernment.

Discernment refers to a child’s mental capacity to understand the nature and consequences of an act and recognize that it is morally and legally wrong.

READ: Juvenile Justice Law: What many Filipinos often misunderstand

Juvenile Justice and Welfare Council Executive Director Tricia Clare Oco explained that for discernment to be established, a social worker initially assesses the child.

“They use what is called a discernment tool, a scientific assessment tool used to determine whether the child truly understands the difference between right and wrong and the consequences of his or her actions,” she said.

READ: Murder raps filed vs 15-year-old Tacloban school shooter

As lawyer Amlan-Najar Namla said, exemption from criminal liability does not mean a child offender will face no consequences.

Child offenders below 15 years old and those who acted without discernment are removed from ordinary criminal prosecution and placed under intervention or rehabilitation programs designed to address their behavior and circumstances.

“The child is still accountable, still under State supervision, and in serious cases still deprived of liberty in a youth care facility,” she explained. “Below 18 [years old] does not mean above the law.”

READ: Criminal raps vs 15-year-old; rehab for younger suspect

Rigor said that currently, the implementation of the law includes the rehabilitation of children in conflict with the law in Bahay Pag-asa facilities, where they are kept away from criminality and treated humanely with kindness, dignity and respect.

Intervention programs like Buklod Paglaom teach children and adolescents in these facilities life skills training, anger management, emotional regulation and other psychosocial skills.

Lower age of criminal responsibility

As Rigor explained, lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 10 would mean “we blame minors for the crime they commit rather than understanding why they did the crime in the first place.”

“It means punishing a child with a life sentence of stigma and hate born out of a mistake that they might not have fully realized at such an early age,” he said. “It means that we make our children scapegoats for the unjust, broken system that failed to protect them.”

He asserted that “lowering the age of criminal responsibility does not deter nor punish crime, it obscures it.”

It reinforces a culture of impunity and a retributive criminal justice system that is hellbent on punishment, not change, Rigor said, pointing out that “when we perceive children simply through the mistakes they have done, what does that say about us as a society?”

For him, crime is not just a legal issue.

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“It is a mental health issue. It is a psychological issue. It is a family issue. It is a parenting issue. It is a morality issue. It is a cultural issue. It is a systemic issue. It is a societal issue,” he said.

“What we do with the children of today will definitely haunt us when they become the adults of the future,” he said. /dm