Human Rights Committee - Philippine Center for Investigative ...

International Criminal Court, despite the organized, systematic, and widespread practice
of jailing children with adult crime suspects under sub-human conditions and without
access to psychosocial, health, and legal services.
1219. Criminal responsibility and culpability within the Statute of the
International Tribunal is considered both in terms of the exercise of superior
authority and of direct participation in the commission of the crimes charged.
The sentencing provisions of Article 24 and Rule 101 do not make such a
distinction. This is probably because of the evident truth on which the
concept of command responsibility is based, which is the maxim qui facit per
alium facit per se, and the fact that offences are committed by individual
human beings and not by abstract entities. The Trial Chamber has already
stated that the issue of sentencing arises only after guilt has been
established. Accordingly, as submitted by the Prosecution in this case, “there
can be no absolute rule regarding the manner in which an accused’s position
as a superior affects his sentence. . .”.The general view is that “[t]he
punishment meted out, like the question of guilt itself, will depend on the
circumstances of each case”.
1220. The finding of guilt on the basis of the exercise of superior authority
depends upon knowledge of the crimes committed and the failure to prevent
their commission, or punish the perpetrators. 26
Without holding top Philippine officials accountable for this form of crimes against
humanity, torture, and cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment and punishment, any
other remedy would be unavailing.
Breaking the chains of impunity
Impunity mars this violation of the Covenant, with the so-called Office of the
Ombudsman dismissing in November 2005 the 50-page attached class suit filed by
these five complainants on behalf of some 20,000 child prisoners on December 10,
2003, International Human Rights Day, to hale the President and her top police and
Cabinet officials to court in order to account for these Covenant violations.
The dismissal by the so-called Ombudsman of the child prisoners’ class action
against the President et. al. only serves to further entrench the impunity characterizing
the twin evils of police child detention and the lumping of children together with adult
crime suspects. The hollowness of the so-called Ombudsman’s claim of providing
effective remedies to child prisoners by the ruse of furnishing the Commission on Human
Rights and the Department of Social Welfare and Development with its own anti-human
rights order dismissing the child prisoners’ suit against the President et. al. only rings
louder as the imprisonment of children with adult crime suspects in police jails persists
without letup and with the Ombudsman’s own blessings.
Any further judicial, administrative, or meta-legal remedies, other than the ones
taken by the child prisoners, counsel, and the rest of the Philippine human rights
community would be futile and ineffective in stopping the Philippine state’s violation of
the Covenant. This is due to the wall of impunity surrounding the violations. The Office
of the President is responsible for the violations by virtue of the principle of command
responsibility. Hence, no single prosecution for violation of the Covenant under
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