Adults who make kids commit crimes face 40 years in prison under Senate bill

Adults, including parents, who exploit children into committing crimes face up to 40 years in prison if the Senate version of the bill proposing to lower the age of criminal liability to 12 is enacted. 

Senate Bill 2198, under Committee Report 622 recommended heavier penalties on child exploiters and specifically mentioning the parents, provisions not found in the present Republic Act 9344 or the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act.

“Any person, including the parent of a child, who, in the commission of a crime, makes use, takes advantage of, or profits from the use of children, including any person who abuses his/her authority over the child or who, with abuse of confidence, takes advantage of the vulnerabilities of the child and shall induce, threaten, or instigate the commission of the crime, shall be imposed the penalty of reclusion perpetua, if the crime committed is punishable by imprisonment of more than six years, and reclusion temporal, if the crime committed is punishable by imprisonment of six years or less,” it stated.

“The fact that the person who exploited the child for the commission of crimes shall be considered as a generic aggravating circumstance,” it added.

The bill also stated that parents whose children, aged 12 years old but below 18 years, committed serious crimes “shall suffer the penalty of prision correccional in its minimum period to prision correccional in its maximum period,” or a minimum of six months and one day to a maximum of six years imprisonment.

This amended Article 60 of Presidential Decree 603, or the “Child and Youth Welfare Code, which imposes parental liability of “imprisonment from two or six months or a fine not exceeding five hundred pesos, or both, at the discretion of the court, unless a higher penalty is provided for in the Revised Penal Court or special laws.”

The bill further proposed the parents shall be primarily liable for civil damages arising our of the actions of the child in conflict with the law unless they prove, to the satisfaction of the court,  that they were exercising reasonable supervision over the child at the time the child committed the offense and exerted reasonable effort and utmost diligence to prevent or discourage the crime.

It also put to the Department of Social Welfare and Development the responsibility of building, funding, and operating a Bahay Pag-asa, which is presently the responsibility of local government units. —NB, GMA News