Human Rights Committee - Philippine Center for Investigative ...

their being poor, their sex (as far as girl prisoners are concerned), and of their tender
age which render them defenseless and powerless to rise up in defense of their dignity
and human rights in the face of the systematic, organized, and widespread onslaught by
law enforcers acting under color of official authority and title from the President who is
their commander-in-chief. This violates Article 26 as elucidated in Committee General
Comment 28 (Paragraphs 3, 4, and 15).
These state functionaries know and/or are in a position to know that these child
prisoners are mostly unlettered, economically marginalized, and politically powerless;
thus, enabling them to commit this institutionalized discrimination against child prisoners
with impunity. The President, et. al., know and/or are in a position to know that these
children are incapable of defending and protecting their rights amid the onslaughts from
the law enforcers who tacitly and indirectly receive their orders from the Philippine
President, who is their Commander-in-Chief.
The President refuses and fails to stop the institutionalized, widespread, and
systematic jailing of children with adult crime suspects in police jails all over the
Philippines, save for Cebu City, victimizing some 20,000 children every year on a
cumulative basis. This 20,000 figure is based on statistics on children accused of
violating the law (CAVL) released by the Office of Philippine Senator Francis Pangilinan
in 2003. The Philippine Public Attorney’s Office reported having provided free legal aid
to 13,300 CAVL in 2002. For its part, the government’s Council for the Welfare of
Children reported that, over a six-year period, there were 52,756 CAVL, from 1995 to
2000.
Despite the clamor from many sectors of society, the Philippine President fails
and refuses to stop the incarceration of children with adult crime suspects in cramped
police jails where the children, especially girl prisoners, face greater risks of torture,
sodomy, rape, tattooing, and other despicable forms of abuse both in the hands of their
police captors and adult prisoners. Instead, the President blames the judiciary for the
children’s prolonged detention as evidenced by her speech during the founding
anniversary of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption held at the Rizal Hall in
Malacanang last August 12.
The President down to the law enforcers in the entire chain of command persist
in carrying out this practice due to their retributive mindset, bias and prejudice, that
manifest as a brazen form of unlawful discrimination against children belonging to the
poorest of the poor on account of their age, economic and social status, and in the case
of girl prisoners, sex, on top of this age and other status discrimination.
Data culled by the Coalition to Stop Child Detention Through Restorative Justice prove
that all these children come from the ranks of children whose families’ income level falls
below the poverty threshold as indicated by no less than the government’s own National
Economic and Development Authority (NEDA).
Most child prisoners come from 45.30 percent of the population living below the
poverty threshold as of 1991. While NEDA statistics show a downtrend in poverty
incidence – pegged at 40.60 percent in 1994, reduced to 34 percent in 2000, and curbed
down further to 30.40 percent in 2003 – the phenomenon of child detention is actually
worsening. Senator Jamby Madrigal, chairperson of the Philippine Senate’s Committee
on Youth, Women and Children, cites conservative estimates on the number of street
children nationwide as reaching 1.5 million. About 50,000 of these children were
49