LGUs encouraged to have holding centers for kids first

An official of the Children’s Legal Bureau (CLB) yesterday encouraged local government units to first create a center for minors before implementing curfew on minors.

Lawyer Joan Saniel, CLB executive director, said minors who are rescued at night should be placed in a holding center where they can be claimed by their parents the following day.

“If they don’t have any holding centers for minors, where will they put the rescued children?” Saniel said.

Saniel also cautioned LGUs about imposing stiff penalties on rescued children and their parents.

Saniel said rescued children should be spared from any sanction.

Parents, on the other hand, may be asked to do community service or attend seminars to educate them about their role as parents.

“Parents have the responsibility to ensure that their children are home at night,” she said.

But Saniel cautioned LGUs not to implement stiff penalties, like imprisonment, on parents whose children are rescued at night.

“If the parents will be placed in jail, who will take care of their children? In that case, children will again go to the streets,” she said.

Saniel said there’s nothing wrong with the implementation of curfew for minors as long as it is intended to protect children, not to punish them.

“Curfews are not punitive but to make sure our children are safe. Our aim should be to protect minors, not to penalize them,” she told CDN over the phone.

Curfew ordinances in the different local government units (LGUs) vary.

Republic Act 10630 or an “Act strengthening the juvenile justice system in the Philippines” states that ordinances enacted by local governments concerning juvenile status offenses such as curfew violations shall be for the protection of children.

“No penalty shall be imposed on children for said violations, and they shall instead be brought to their residence or to any barangay official at the barangay hall to be released to the custody of their parents,” the law said.

Rescued children shall also be recorded as a “child at risk” and not as a “child in conflict with the law.”

“The ordinance shall also provide for intervention programs, such as counseling, attendance in group activities for children and for the parents, attendance in parenting education seminars,” the law says.