Duterte targets Philippine children in bid to widen drug war

MANILA (Reuters) – Before Rodrigo Duterte`s bloody war on drugs had even begun, allies of the Philippines president were calmly preparing for a broader offensive. On June 30, as Duterte was sworn in, they introduced a bill into the Philippine Congress that could permit children as youthful as nine to be targeted in a crackdown that has since claimed more than 7,600 lives.

The bill proposes to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility from fifteen to nine years old to prevent what it calls «the pampering of youthful offenders who commit crimes knowing they can get away with it.»

«You can ask any policeman or anyone connected with the law enforcement: We produce a generation of criminals,» Duterte said in a speech in Manila on December 12. Youthful children, he said, were becoming drug runners, thieves and rapists, and must be «instructed to understand responsibility.»

The stir to target children signals Duterte`s determination to intensify his drug war, which faces outrage abroad and growing unease at home. The president`s allies say his support in Congress will ensure the bill passes the House of Representatives by June.

The House would approve the bill «within six months,» said Fredenil Castro, who co-authored the legislation with the speaker of the House, Pantaleon Alvarez. It might face opposition in the Senate, but would prevail because of Duterte`s allies there, added Castro.

National police chief Ronald Dela Rosa recently announced that he was suspending anti-narcotics operations, which have killed more than Two,500 people, while the force rids itself of corrupt cops. The announcement came after it emerged last month that drug squad officers had killed a South Korean businessman at national police headquarters.

The killing of drug suspects has continued, albeit at a slower tempo, with most following the pattern of killings that police have blamed on vigilantes. Human rights monitors believe vigilantes have killed several thousand people and operate in league with the police – a charge the police deny.

Duterte has signaled he intends to proceed his drug war. In late January, he said the campaign would run until his presidency finishes in 2022.

‘IN CAHOOTS WITH DRUG USERS`

Lowering the age of criminality was justified, Castro told Reuters, because many children were «in cahoots with drug users, with drug pushers, and others who are related to the drug trade.» He said he based his support for the bill on what he witnessed from his car and at churches – children begging and pickpocketing. «For me, there isn`t any evidence more coaxing than what I see in every day of my life,» he said.

A controversial bill to restore the death penalty, another presidential priority, is also expected to pass the House of Representatives by mid-year, according to Duterte allies in Congress.

Supporters of the bill to lower the age of criminality say holding youthful children liable will discourage drug traffickers from exploiting them. Opponents, including opposition lawmakers and human rights groups, are appalled at a budge they say will harm children without evidence it will reduce crime.

There is also resistance inwards Duterte`s administration. A member of Duterte`s cabinet who goes the Department of Social Welfare and Development opposes the budge. And a branch of the police responsible for protecting women and children disputes the claim that children are strenuously involved in the drug trade – a claim not supported by official data.

Opponents warn that lowering the age of criminality would further strain a juvenile justice system that is fighting to cope. At worst, they say, with a drug war furious nationwide, the bill could legitimize the killing of minors.

«What will stop them from targeting children?» said Karina Teh, a local politician and child rights advocate in Manila. «They are using the war on drugs to criminalize children.»

IN THE FIRING LINE

The drug-war death toll includes at least twenty nine minors who were either shot by unidentified gunmen or accidentally killed during police operations from July to November 2016, according to the Children`s Legal Rights and Development Center (CLRDC) and the Network Against Killings in the Philippines, both Manila-based advocacy groups.

Dela Rosa said the Philippine National Police «fully supports» the fresh bill. It is «true and supported by data» that minors are used by drug traffickers because they can`t be held criminally liable, the police chief said in a subjugation to the House of Representatives.

Some police officers working on the streets agree with Dela Rosa. In Manila`s slums, children as youthful as six act as lookouts for dealers, shouting «The enemy is coming!» when police treatment, said Cecilio Tomas, an anti-narcotics officer in the city. By their early teenagers, some become delivery boys and then dealers and users, said Tomas.

Salvador Panelo, Duterte`s chief legal counsel, said the bill would protect children by stopping criminals from recruiting them. «They will not become targets simply because they will no longer be involved,» he said.

Child rights experts say the legislation could put children in the firing line. They point to the deadly precedent set in the southern city of Davao, where Duterte pioneered his hard-line tactics as mayor. The Coalition Against Summary Execution, a Davao-based rights watchdog, documented 1,424 vigilante-style killings in the city inbetween one thousand nine hundred ninety eight and 2015. Of those victims, one hundred thirty two were seventeen or junior.

For all but three years during that period, Duterte was either Davao`s mayor or vice-mayor. He denied any involvement in the killings.

CONTRADICTORY EVIDENCE

Althea Barbon was one of the children killed in the current nationwide drug war. The four year old was fatally wounded in August when police in an anti-narcotics operation shot at her father, the two Manila-based advocacy groups said. Unidentified gunmen shot dead Ericka Fernandez, 17, in a Manila alley on October 26, police said. Her bloody Barbie doll was collected as evidence. And on December 28, three boys, aged fifteen or 16, were killed in Manila by what police said were motorbike-riding gunmen.

If the bill passes, the Philippines won`t be the only country where the age of criminality is low. In countries including England, Northern Ireland and Switzerland it is Ten, according to the website of the Child Rights International Network, a research and advocacy group. In Scotland, children as youthfull as eight can be held criminally responsible, but the government is in the process of raising the age limit to 12.

Critics of the Philippines` bill say lower age boundaries are largely found in countries where the legal systems, detention facilities and rehabilitation programs are more developed.

Statistics from the police and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), the government`s top anti-narcotics figure, emerge to contradict the Duterte camp`s claim that there is a large number of youthful children deeply involved in the drug trade.

There were 24,000 minors among the 800,000 drug users and dealers who had registered with the authorities by November 30, according to police statistics. But less than two percent of those minors, or about four hundred children, were delivering or selling drugs. Only twelve percent, or Two,815, were aged fifteen or junior. Most of the 24,000 minors were listed as drug users.

The number of minors involved in the drug trade is «just a petite portion,» said Noel Sandoval, deputy head of the Women and Children`s Protection Center (WCPC), the police department that compiled the data.

The WCPC is not pushing to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility, said Sandoval, but if the age is to be lowered, his department recommends a minimum age of 12, not 9.

Inbetween January two thousand eleven and July 2016, nine hundred fifty six children aged six to seventeen were «rescued nationwide from illegal drug activity,» according to PDEA. They were mostly involved with marijuana and crystal methamphetamine, a very addictive drug also known as shabu, and were passed over to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). Of these, only eighty were under the age of 15.

MORE DETENTIONS

Asked for evidence that junior children are involved in the drug trade, Duterte`s legal counsel Panelo said the president had data from «all intelligence agencies.» Panelo declined to disclose those numbers.

Among the opponents of the bill is a member of Duterte`s cabinet, Judy Taguiwalo, secretary of the DSWD. The legislation runs counter to scientific skill about child development and would result not in lower crime rates but in more children being detained, Taguiwalo wrote in a letter to the House of Representatives in October.

Hidden by a high wall topped with metal spikes, the Valenzuela youth detention center in northern Manila is already operating at twice its capacity. Its eighty nine boys eat meals in shifts – the canteen can`t hold them all at once – and sleep on mats that spill out of the spartan dorms and into the hallways.

The government-run center, which presently houses boys aged thirteen to seventeen for up to a year, is considered a model facility in the Philippines. Even so, said Lourdes Gardoce, a social worker at the Valenzuela home, «It`s a big adjustment on our part if we have to cater to kids as youthful as nine.»

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