Rights group expresses concern on calls to lower minimum age of criminal responsibility, increased police presence in schools
KARAPATAN Public Information
PRESS RELEASE
June 25, 2026
Reference: Cristina Palabay, KARAPATAN secretary general, 09173162831
KARAPATAN Public Information Desk, 09189790580
Rights group expresses concern on calls to lower minimum age of criminal responsibility, increased police presence in schools
KARAPATAN expressed grave concern over calls to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 12 in light of the recent school shooting in Tacloban City involving a 14-year old and a 15-year old that resulted in the death of three students and injuries to 20 others.
“These calls divert attention from multiple factors such as poverty, abuse, neglect and lack of government support for rehabilitation programs that lead to the involvement of minors in violent crimes and other anti-social behavior,” said KARAPATAN secretary general Cristina Palabay. “They also automatically put the onus of guilt on the child in conflict with the law, obscure the formative role of adults and society on children and make light of state responsibility in the rise of criminality among the youth,” she added.
“There also seems to be a deliberate misreading of the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act (R.A. 9344) of 2006,” she said, “which actually calls for the detention in rehabilitation centers of youth offenders younger than 15 found to have committed serious crimes. They are not just allowed to go scot-free without interventions to ensure that they will not commit crimes again.”
RA 9344, however, has not been implemented well enough and funds are sorely lacking for the maintenance of rehabilitation programs and centers and for hiring social workers and other needed personnel, she pointed out. More importantly, the state has turned a blind eye to eradicating poverty, one of the root causes of criminal behavior among children and the youth, she added.
Meanwhile, KARAPATAN warned that militarists in government are pouncing on the school shooting incident to justify increased police presence in schools. Immediately after the incident, police were ordered to maintain heightened visibility in other schools in Eastern Visayas, Northern Mindanao, Cebu City and Iloilo City. KARAPATAN also received reports that the Brigada Eskwela clean-up program is being used as a pretext to militarize campuses despite a Department of Education (DepEd) memorandum prohibiting the presence of armed elements in schools, added KARAPATAN secretary general Cristina Palabay.
“These police and military personnel claim that they are there to help parents prepare schools for class opening, but are actually conducting surveillance on teachers and students,” said Palabay. “This is nothing new since Sara Duterte has hinted that during her stint as DepEd secretary, she prioritized intelligence gathering and identifying threats in school campuses, and misusing her confidential and intelligence funds for this. We know that she was referring to her red-tagging sprees against militant student and teachers’ groups,” continued Palabay.
“This is objectionable as the militarization of school campuses is an affront to academic freedom, stifles critical thinking and is a violation of the students’ and teachers’ right to organize, to free expression, and to peaceably assemble and air their grievances.”
“It is the country’s youth and its education sector that will be on the losing end,” rued Palabay, “if violent incidents like the Tacloban school shooting are exploited to step up the red-tagging of progressive youth, student and teachers’ groups and the militarization of campuses and the government misguidedly implements the myopic and simplistic step of lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility but perpetuates policies leading to mass poverty that ultimately give rise to juvenile delinquent behavior,” she concluded.
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KARAPATAN is an alliance of human rights organizations and programs, human rights desks and committees of people’s organizations, and individual advocates committed to the defense and promotion of people’s rights and civil liberties. It monitors and documents cases of human rights violations, assists and defends victims and conducts education, training and campaign. It was established in 1995.