THE VIEW FROM RIZAL
By DR. JUN YNARES
Dr. Jun Ynares
“Do you support the move to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility?”
Several peers in the local government sector and friends from church circles have been asking me this question lately. This has to do with the highly emotionally charged debate on whether or not the country should lower the minimum age at which children who come in conflict with the law may be tried in court and held criminally responsible for their actions.
Congress has initially approved on first reading their version of the bill lowering that age from 15 to nine, which was subsequently raised to 12 during the second reading.
There has been much applause from sectors who support the move and a significant uproar from those who do not.
We have yet to make sense of where this issue is going. We are still baffled as to why there seems to be an urgency to enact such a law. Have our children become a real threat to the safety of our society? We have yet to determine what are the right questions to ask in order to come up with the answers we are looking for.
We listened to what both the pros and the cons have been saying.
One interesting insight came from a friend from our high school days at a Catholic school. He said, “Do you remember what we learned at Religion class?” He said he recalled that one Religion teacher spoke of a concept called “age of reason.”
The “age of reason” is supposed to be the age of the child at which he or she can discern between what is right and wrong.
This is the age at which the child is “officially” declared capable of committing “mortal” and “venial” sin. When the child reaches the “age of reason,” he or she may no longer receive Holy Communion at Mass without first going to Confession. To do so would be to commit “sacrilege,” especially if the child has a “mortal” sin in his religious spiritual record (which, we were told during those days, included fantasies which were sexual in nature and similar conversations which boys our age were just beginning to indulge in).
The consequence of “mortal” sin committed by one who has reached the “age of reason” was supposed to be Hell – the kind that is described in Dante’s Inferno -- the consignment of the soul to raging eternal fire.
That age of reason – if we remember correctly – is seven. Yes. Seven. Supposedly, at the age of seven, a child’s soul can be banished to Hell. A seven-year-old boy’s soul can lose the chance of going to Heaven forever for imagining and fantasizing too much about a woman’s anatomy.
“That makes the Catholic Church more strict than how the government wants to be in holding our children accountable for doing things considered criminal,” my friend pointed out.
If we can correctly recall, there are three elements that make for what religious authorities call “mortal” sin – the kind that sends one to Hell. First, a serious matter is involved; second, there is full knowledge; and, third, the full consent of the will.
We are not sure if the threat of “going to Hell” got to stop the boys in our High School who were twice the age of reason from fantasizing and talking about the human anatomy. But that was a “threat” that some of religion teachers found useful. The threat at least got “age of reason” boys to fall in line at the confessional box – occasionally.
Would the threat of “going to jail” stop so-called children-in-conflict-with-the-law from committing crimes?
According to the Philippine National Police (PNP), from 2006 to 2012, less than 2 percent of crimes reported were allegedly committed by children. Of that total, almost 50 percent were crimes against property – robbery, petty theft, shoplifting, and the like.
It is interesting that most of these children supposedly come from underprivileged families which have an average of six offspring. They are mostly school dropouts and have had an early exposure to alcohol and substance abuse.
Is it possible that the environment created for them by adults who are supposed to take care of them led them to become “criminals” at an early age?
We have not taken a solid position on this matter. However, it bothers us that parents who are supposed to be responsible for raising their children may no longer be held liable for what a child who has reached the age of nine has done.
We are also bothered by the possibility that most of our nine-year-olds who face the prospect of going to jail on a criminal sentence were led to commit a crime because they were hungry and needy and their parents had failed to provide for them.
A needy child who is hungry, abused, and neglected by adults, may have lost the sense of reason when he or she resorts to shoplifting to relieve hunger pangs. The threat of jail in this situation may be as ineffective as the threat of Hell has been to boys twice the age of reason going through the internal turmoil caused by adolescent hormones.
As a responsible government official, we are bound to support and implement what the legislature may eventually enact into law.
Whatever the outcome of this debate may be, we hope we can handle and deal with it as people who have indeed reached the age of reason.
*For feedback, please email it to [email protected] or send it to #4 Horse Shoe Drive, Beverly Hills Subdivision, Bgy. Beverly Hills, Antipolo City, Rizal.
Dr. Jun Ynares
“Do you support the move to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility?”
Several peers in the local government sector and friends from church circles have been asking me this question lately. This has to do with the highly emotionally charged debate on whether or not the country should lower the minimum age at which children who come in conflict with the law may be tried in court and held criminally responsible for their actions.
Congress has initially approved on first reading their version of the bill lowering that age from 15 to nine, which was subsequently raised to 12 during the second reading.
There has been much applause from sectors who support the move and a significant uproar from those who do not.
We have yet to make sense of where this issue is going. We are still baffled as to why there seems to be an urgency to enact such a law. Have our children become a real threat to the safety of our society? We have yet to determine what are the right questions to ask in order to come up with the answers we are looking for.
We listened to what both the pros and the cons have been saying.
One interesting insight came from a friend from our high school days at a Catholic school. He said, “Do you remember what we learned at Religion class?” He said he recalled that one Religion teacher spoke of a concept called “age of reason.”
The “age of reason” is supposed to be the age of the child at which he or she can discern between what is right and wrong.
This is the age at which the child is “officially” declared capable of committing “mortal” and “venial” sin. When the child reaches the “age of reason,” he or she may no longer receive Holy Communion at Mass without first going to Confession. To do so would be to commit “sacrilege,” especially if the child has a “mortal” sin in his religious spiritual record (which, we were told during those days, included fantasies which were sexual in nature and similar conversations which boys our age were just beginning to indulge in).
The consequence of “mortal” sin committed by one who has reached the “age of reason” was supposed to be Hell – the kind that is described in Dante’s Inferno -- the consignment of the soul to raging eternal fire.
That age of reason – if we remember correctly – is seven. Yes. Seven. Supposedly, at the age of seven, a child’s soul can be banished to Hell. A seven-year-old boy’s soul can lose the chance of going to Heaven forever for imagining and fantasizing too much about a woman’s anatomy.
“That makes the Catholic Church more strict than how the government wants to be in holding our children accountable for doing things considered criminal,” my friend pointed out.
If we can correctly recall, there are three elements that make for what religious authorities call “mortal” sin – the kind that sends one to Hell. First, a serious matter is involved; second, there is full knowledge; and, third, the full consent of the will.
We are not sure if the threat of “going to Hell” got to stop the boys in our High School who were twice the age of reason from fantasizing and talking about the human anatomy. But that was a “threat” that some of religion teachers found useful. The threat at least got “age of reason” boys to fall in line at the confessional box – occasionally.
Would the threat of “going to jail” stop so-called children-in-conflict-with-the-law from committing crimes?
According to the Philippine National Police (PNP), from 2006 to 2012, less than 2 percent of crimes reported were allegedly committed by children. Of that total, almost 50 percent were crimes against property – robbery, petty theft, shoplifting, and the like.
It is interesting that most of these children supposedly come from underprivileged families which have an average of six offspring. They are mostly school dropouts and have had an early exposure to alcohol and substance abuse.
Is it possible that the environment created for them by adults who are supposed to take care of them led them to become “criminals” at an early age?
We have not taken a solid position on this matter. However, it bothers us that parents who are supposed to be responsible for raising their children may no longer be held liable for what a child who has reached the age of nine has done.
We are also bothered by the possibility that most of our nine-year-olds who face the prospect of going to jail on a criminal sentence were led to commit a crime because they were hungry and needy and their parents had failed to provide for them.
A needy child who is hungry, abused, and neglected by adults, may have lost the sense of reason when he or she resorts to shoplifting to relieve hunger pangs. The threat of jail in this situation may be as ineffective as the threat of Hell has been to boys twice the age of reason going through the internal turmoil caused by adolescent hormones.
As a responsible government official, we are bound to support and implement what the legislature may eventually enact into law.
Whatever the outcome of this debate may be, we hope we can handle and deal with it as people who have indeed reached the age of reason.
*For feedback, please email it to [email protected] or send it to #4 Horse Shoe Drive, Beverly Hills Subdivision, Bgy. Beverly Hills, Antipolo City, Rizal.