Human Rights Committee - Philippine Center for Investigative ...

For tacitly acquiescing, consenting, and authorizing, hence, being ultimately
“responsible for other conditions prejudicial to the child’s development,” the
President becomes liable for violating Article VI, Section 10(a) of RA 7610.
For effectively abetting this widespread form of child torture, cruelty, and
abuse—despite Your Excellency’s actual knowledge or being in a position to
know about this prevalent crime against children of the poorest of the poor
and Your Excellency’s positive duty to prevent and stop this monstrosity, as
well as to punish violators—the President, for being a “public officer,” could
be slapped with a 12-year jail term under Article XII, Section 31(e) of RA
7610.
The President cannot evade criminal liability, by hiding under the mantle of
sovereign immunity from suit, for egregious human rights violations such as
this bizarre form of torture and crimes against humanity.
Atty. Perfecto Caparas
Convener
Coalition to Stop Child Detention Through Restorative Justice
Email: coalition@stopchilddetention.com
For a copy of RA 7610, pls. refer to
http://www.chanrobles.com/republicactno7610.html
Other statements:
President, top officials criminally liable for jailing children with adult crime
suspects 21
by Perfecto Caparas Thursday, Aug. 25, 2005 at 4:21 AM
coalition@stopchilddetention.com
The principle of command responsibility pins down the President and top
police and government officials for the barbaric and wide scale practice of
hauling off 13,300 to 20,000 children of the poorest of the poor (some
estimate the number of children to be 52,000) in police jails packed with
adult crime suspects under sub-human conditions, where they get
sodomized and raped, tortured, tattooed, and subjected to various forms of
cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment and punishment.
PRESIDENT Arroyo and top officials should be held criminally liable for the
wide scale jailing of children with adults due to command responsibility, a
rights group urged the Ombudsman recently.
In its motion for reconsideration asking the Ombudsman to reconsider its
earlier order dismissing the suit against Arroyo and her top officials, the
Coalition to Stop Child Detention Through Restorative Justice, a group of 26
human rights groups in the country, urged the Ombudsman anew to slap
graft charges against Arroyo and top police and Cabinet officials and order
them to stop the widespread abuse of children in prison.
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