Solon wants age of statutory rape increased from 12 to 16

A House bill has been filed seeking to raise the age of statutory rape from the current 12 to 16 years old, and increase penalty for the offenders regardless if they were male or female.

Majority Leader Martin Romualdez and Tingog Sinirangan party-list Representative Yedda Marie Romualdez, who are husband and wife, have authored House Bill 4160, which seeks to impose life imprisonment to individuals committing statutory rape.

“If this measure is passed into law, any adult who has sexual intercourse with a minor below 16 years old is guilty of rape. Even if the minor has given his or her consent to the sexual act, it is still rape,” she said.

“The sexual orientation of the offender is of no importance. Men and women, even members of the LGBT community, may be charged with statutory rape. No one is above the law,” she added.

Statutory rape, in common law jurisdictions, is the non-forcible sexual activity where one of the individuals is below the age of consent or the age required to legally consent to the act.

Republic Act 8353 or the Anti-Rape Law of 1997 states that it is illegal to engage in sexual intercourse with children below 12 years old and such act is tantamount to rape. Sexual activity with a person below 18 years old, meanwhile, constitutes child abuse and exploitation.

This means 12-year-old rape victims have to go through court hearings to prove beyond reasonable doubt that they were sexually abused.

But in her bill, Romualdez pointed out that the current age for determining statutory rape is not compliant with the international average as per the 2015 report released by the United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF) East Asia and Pacific Region.

“In fact, the same study revealed that the age of sexual consent in the Philippine is the lowest in the Southeast Asian Region,” she said.

For Romualdez, the establishment of a minimum age of sexual content is important to protect minors from sexual abuse.

"Minors who are below 16 years old are still considered without power to resist to give their genuine and fully informed consent to any sexual activity,” she said.

Under Romualdez's bill, the crime of statutory rape is committed by any adult who will commit any of the following acts against a person below 16 years old:

• Inserting a person’s penis into another person’s inner or outer vaginal labia, mouth or anal orifice;
• Inserting any instrument or object, including a finger, into another person’s inner or outer vaginal labia, or anal orifice;
• Causing the insertion of a person’s penis into the inner or outer vaginal labia, mouth, or oral orifice of another person through force, threat, intimidation, verbal pressure, persuasion, coercion, administration of alcohol, drugs resulting to the deprivation of reason, or fraudulent machination or grave abuse of authority;

When the offended party is deprived of reason or otherwise unconscious; and
causing two or more persons to engage in sexual acts, or their performance of any of the abovementioned acts through force, threat, intimidation, verbal pressure, persuasion, coercion, administration of alcohol, drugs resulting to the deprivation of reason, or fraudulent machination or grave abuse of authority, even if the perpetrator does not participate;

The bill also does not automatically extinguish the criminal action or punishment to the offender even if he or she subsequently engages in a valid marriage with the victim.

At the same time, the bill redefines the crimes of qualified seduction, simple seduction, forcible abduction, and consented abduction in relation to minors as victims.

Under the bill, qualified seduction is now defined as the “seduction of a minor 16 years and under 18 years of age, committed by any person in public authority, priest or religious engaged in legitimate religious vocation or calling, domestic, guardian, teacher or any person who, in any capacity, shall be entrusted with the education or custody of the minor seduced.”

Those who committed the crime of qualified seduction will now be meted with a penalty of prison correctional in its medium and maximum periods.

Meanwhile, simple seduction is referred as “seduction of a minor of good reputation 16 years but under 18 years of age, committed by means of deceit" punishable by arresto mayor, while forcible abduction is “abduction of any person against his or her will and with lewd designs" punishable by reclusion temporal.

On the other hand, consented abduction is “abduction of a minor 16 years and under 18 years of age, carried out with his or her consent and with lewd designs." Perpetrators of this crime will face a penalty of prison correccional in its minimum and medium periods. —LDF, GMA News