Rizal’s Words Betrayed: Are We Locking Away Our Hope?

| Jonah Borromeo

Cartoon by Keisha Radene Mack

“Ang kabataan ang pag-asa ng bayan.” These are the immortal words of Dr. Jose Rizal that echoed across our country. It is what reminds us that our future is in the hands of the youth. However, the very people who have the authority to treasure our children—to protect our hope, are the people who wish to lower the age of criminal liability.

This is the vision that comes with the proposals to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR) in the Philippines from 15 to 10 years old. Senator Robin Padilla believes that once a child can commit heinous acts such as rape or murder, he or she must be punished according to the law—regardless of age.

On the outside, it looks and sounds like justice. Sounds plausible, right? But lowering the age of criminal liability is not protection; it is punishment disguised as a policy. It does not save children from crime—it condemns them to the cycle of it.

How can the youth be the hope of our nation if we see them as criminals rather than children? How can the youth be the hope of our nation if we, as a society, choose to weigh them down with chains before they even learn how to dream?

Imagine a 10-year-old child, still running around with small feet, eyes big yet timid. A child who can barely spell and add. Now, imagine this same child—not inside its home, not inside a classroom—but confined inside a facility meant for offenders. Locked away, branded as a criminal, treated as if he or she is beyond saving.

Senator Padilla has openly expressed his desire to amend the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act. A law that is meant to protect children in conflict with the law. This Act acknowledges that minors who commit crimes are often victims themselves, often exploited by adults who use them as pawns to do their dirty work for them. Padilla’s proposals seek to weaken these protections, punishing children who are still in the developing stage rather than adults who have discernment.

Lowering the age of criminal liability might sound like a quick solution to the problem. However, it only diverts our attention and distracts us from the deeper flaws in our system. Instead of asking how young a child should be able to face punishment, we should be asking why so many children end up in conflict with the law. Our problem cannot be fixed with an easy solution. If we want a long-term effect in our country, we should choose the long and hard path. The path that offers a second chance. Lack of access to education, weak community support, and unsafe home and environments are the problems that need addressing. If these remain unsolved, no amount of punishment or amendment of the law will break the cycle of children being pushed into crime.

International standards, such as those from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), emphasize the need for rehabilitation for minor offenders. The Philippines, being a signatory, must oblige to ensure that policies align with the child’s best interests. Lowering the age of criminal liability does not solve the underlying issues of exploitation, abuse, and vulnerability—it only thickens the layer of injustice. This is primarily why advocates, experts, and child development professionals argue that true justice requires understanding and evidence-based solutions, not harsher punishments for children still in their formative years.

Years of studies and experience show that allowing minors to go through the formal justice system may be harmful to them and may even be more likely to stay involved in crime. So not only are we locking them up, we are also robbing children of the chance to grow into someone different, when they are in the stage where change is most possible. To hold a 10-year-old legally accountable for heinous crimes as though they’re an adult is to ignore decades of research on child development. Justice cannot be built on scientific denial.

And where will we send them? Where will we send the children you all want to oppress? To Bahay Pag-asa? Our so-called “rehabilitation centers”? The centers that are just poorly funded, overcrowded, holding cells? On paper, these facilities are meant for rehabilitation. In reality, many function like prisons. The “Houses of Hope” for children in conflict with the law often confine minors in tiny 6×4 meter cells, with only a single toilet, ripped and hard mattresses, and minimal air ventilation.

An AFP report quotes that children there are being “held like caged animals,” lacking sufficient support. The report also stated that it has few to no rehabilitation programs. The facility lacks staff and resources, implying that many centers are “worse than prisons.” Rather than fostering growth and helping them to change for the better, these facilities strip away dignity and mirror the harsh living conditions of adult prisons. Is this the justice we all want? By making them endure this horrid environment?

Many youth shelters offer nothing but neglect: unsanitary conditions, uniform-like cells, and the utter lack of educational and emotional support, an investigative feature describes. The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) emphasized how these centers—meant for care and rehabilitation—have reportedly become places of further victimization and negative behaviour, warning that they should not be spaces that amplify trauma. Tricia Oco, the executive director of the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Council, testified before the Philippine Senate that some Bahay Pag-Asa centers suffer from “subhuman conditions”, stating the lack of sufficient beds, food, and even cabinets. In addition, another AFP report mentioned that children are subjected to abuse like sexual assault.

If we push 10-year-olds into these places, are we reforming them or simply teaching them how to be hardened criminals? Real rehabilitation is possible, but only if we commit resources, trained staff, and genuine programs that heal and reform, not just detain. We don’t need to abandon the idea of rehabilitation—we need to make it real. As Senator Kiko Pangilinan has argued, the real problem is not the age limit but the weak implementation of the existing law. Instead of rewriting the law, we should fix these gaps.

If we truly believe that the youth are the hope of the nation, then we must choose rehabilitation over retribution, compassion over condemnation. A nation that cages its children does not protect its people—it betrays them.

When we treat children as criminals, we teach them to live up to the label.