MANILA BAY REHABILATION

In Central Luzon, rehabilitation projects will be launched in the towns of Obando in Bulacan,
Mariveles in Bataan and Guagua in Pampanga.

Cimatu said the Manila Bay rehabilitation program would not only involve cleanup activities,
but also relocation of illegal settlers as well as apprehension of establishments that violate the
Philippine Clean Water Act and other environmental laws.

Cimatu is expected to identify establishments found violating the Clean Water Act

“We will serve notices of violation to these establishments that discharge untreated water to
esteros, rivers and other tributaries that flow into Manila Bay,” Cimatu said.

The DENR aims to reduce the coliform level in Manila Bay and in all estuaries and creeks.

Earlier this month, President Duterte approved the Manila Bay rehabilitation plan proposed by
the DENR. He allocated P42.95 billion for the implementation of the project within three years.

Aside from the DENR, other departments tasked in the Manila Bay cleanup are tourism,
interior and local government, social welfare and development, trade and industry, defense,
and science and technology.

The Pasig River Rehabilitation Commission, Housing and Urban Development Coordinating
Council, National Housing Authority, Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor, Manila
Water Co. Inc., Maynilad Water Services Inc. as well as various local government units, non-
government organizations and other stakeholders will participate in the cleanup.

Meanwhile, Interior Secretary Eduardo Año directed local government units (LGUs) and
barangays around Manila Bay to conduct weekly cleanup activities.

Año signed Memorandum Circular No. 2019-09, directing the 178 LGUs and 5,714 barangays
to take part in activities that would contribute to the rehabilitation of the bay.

“Manila Bay is polluted and partly, we have ourselves to blame. But it’s not too late, we can
still make amends,” Año said in a statement.

Volunteers, non-government organizations and civic society organizations could also be tapped
in the cleanup drive to help support the rehabilitation project.
 EXTRAJUDICIAL KILLINGS AS CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

A TOTAL of 3,257 extrajudicial killings (EJKs) were committed during the Marcos
dictatorship. In contrast, there were 805 drug-related fatalities from May 10 (when Rodrigo
Duterte emerged winner of the presidential election) to Aug. 12, per the Inquirer count.

If the current rate continues, the total number of EJKs for the six years of the Duterte
administration will end up about 700 percent more than the killings committed during the 14
years of the Marcos dictatorship.

President Duterte is either ill-advised or terribly underestimating the risk that he can be held
liable at the International Criminal Court, given the circumstances of the killings.

In 2011, the Philippines ratified the Rome Statute which established the International Criminal
Court. Under this treaty, every Filipino, including the President, can be tried by this Court
which has jurisdiction over crimes against humanity. The treaty provides that when murder is
“committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian
population, with knowledge of the attack,” it becomes a crime against humanity.

The possibility that the current EJKs will be considered by the International Criminal Court as
amounting to a crime against humanity is a liability risk that our President is miscalculating.

On Aug. 11, Kabayan party-list Rep. Harry Roque delivered a privilege speech in which he
said: “It is clear that the civilian population is being attacked—news reports all around us
overwhelmingly establish that hundreds of Filipinos have been killed either directly by
governmental forces or with their support or tolerance.”

Roque likewise said: “It is also clear that the President is aware that these acts are ongoing.
Even without proof of a directive on his part, he has, in many instances, spoken about the use
of violence against drug syndicates.”

Roque cited the decisions of international criminal tribunals which prosecuted political and
military officials for crimes against humanity committed in Rwanda and the former
Yugoslavia. These tribunals declared that “it is not necessary to show that [the crimes
committed] were the result of the existence of a policy or plan” and that the plan “need not be
declared expressly or even stated clearly and precisely. It may be surmised from the occurrence
of a series of events.”
The party-list representative cautioned the President to be careful: “While it would be
imprudent for me to say with certainty that President Duterte has already committed a crime
against humanity, it would be a disservice to this entire nation if I did not warn him to be
careful. Neither the Rome Statute nor general international law prescribes a minimum number
of victims for an indictment. So long as the [International Criminal Court] believes that the war
on drugs is ‘widespread’ and ‘systematic,’ [it is] likely to investigate.”

The President enjoys immunity under Philippine law, but he has no similar immunity for crimes
under the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction. Carranza says “the presidents of Sudan
and Kenya were charged” in the court even during their incumbency. And there is no expiration
of liability for ICC crimes, so he can be charged even long after he leaves Malacañang.

The determination of Mr. Duterte to cleanse the country of the drug menace and his willingness
to risk his “life, honor, and the presidency” to achieve this goal are praiseworthy.

However, we are at that stage of our civilization where we have long abandoned the ancient
practice of relying on operatives to dispense justice through the smoking barrel of their guns.
We have advanced our civilization by relying on gun-wielding men to apprehend criminals,
but have separately assigned the task of listening to accusations of guilt and protestations of
innocence to men and women who mete out penalties.

It is true that our current justice system is notoriously imperfect and graft-prone. But we do not
improve our way of life by marching back to the Dark Ages where justice is made synonymous
with violence. We improve our defective justice system by fixing it, not by abandoning it.

It is true that the proliferation of drugs is partly due to corrupt judges. But it is also true that
illegal drugs proliferate because of a corrupt police force and a corrupt prosecution service,
both of which are executive agencies within the President’s control to reform.

It is also true that before our children become drug dependents who clog police and court
dockets, there are the education, health, and social welfare departments which are executive
agencies within the President’s control to tap for instructive, reformative, and curative solutions
to the drug menace.
 YEARENDER: BUILD BUILD BUILD TAKES OFF IN 2018

MANILA, Philippines — The Duterte administration’s economic growth strategy in the

medium-term is heavily anchored on its ambitious infrastructure development program.

With a lot riding on this program — along with hopes of fixing the horrendous traffic in Metro
Manila — all eyes are on the government and the pace it is able to implement 75 big-ticket
infrastructure projects, which are expected to cost a whopping P9 trillion until 2022.

This year, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) reported that the government’s
Build Build Build program has finally kick-started its engines, and is gradually ascending
toward full implementation.

“We’re already taking off. Many of our big-ticket items are already starting,” Budget Secretary
Benjamin Diokno told The STAR in an interview.

According to the latest data from the DBM, the government’s infrastructure and other capital
outlays in the first 10 months jumped by 50.3 percent to P665.1 billion from the P442.7 billion
recorded in the same period last year.

Nicholas Mapa, senior economist at ING Bank Manila, said this pace in infrastructure spending
growth shows “how intent the government is on achieving the so called golden age of
infrastructure for the Philippines.”

More construction this year

Diokno said the surge in infrastructure disbursements may be attributed to base effects, as the
Build Build Build program only started to take off this year.

“It was slow last year as we were only starting. Unfortunately, the previous administration did
not leave us with feasibility studies,” Diokno said.

“It’s not easy to develop projects, and the more complex the project is, the longer it takes to
prepare it,” he said.

In addition, Diokno said state agencies frontloaded the implementation of some projects during
the first half, which is the dry season or the most ideal time to implement infrastructure projects.

Compared to last year, the budget chief said the government was able to implement more big-
ticket items this year, even finishing some of the long-awaited projects.
He cited the P8.9 billion Bohol-Panglao International Airport, which was opened just last
month to serve commercial flights in the province.

“When we came in it was five percent done and they were talking of three phases. So we did
all phases simultaneously and now it is done,” Diokno said.

The DBM chief also mentioned the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX) Harbor Link Segment.
The 8.25-kilometer toll road will connect McArthur Highway and C3, and decongest Metro
Manila as it can provide access to NLEX without passing though EDSA or the Balintawak Toll
Plaza.

Also recently opened was the P1.28 billion Laguna Lake Highway, a 6.94-kilometer highway
which features a three-meter-wide bicycle lane and 1.5-meter sidewalk.

Formerly called C6, the road seeks to reduce travel time from Bicutan to Taytay, Rizal from
an hour to about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, the DBM said the P9.5- billion Light Rail Transit (LRT) Line 2 East (Masinag)
Extension Project is currently undergoing construction.

The Japan-funded project involves the addition of two stations to the existing LRT-2 line to
reduce travel time from Manila to Antipolo from three hours to as fast as 30 minutes.

Other projects currently in the construction phase according to the DBM are the Bonifacio
Global City- Ortigas Center Road Link, Central Luzon Link Expressway Phase 11, and Cavite-
Laguna Expressway, among others.

Diokno said the Clark International Airport Expansion project is also on track to be completed
by the middle of next year, while the Department of Transportation (DOTr) is set to break
ground for its Metro Manila Subway Project this month.

To aid in the faster delivery of these projects, Diokno said the DBM has also increased the
government’s allocations specifically to address right-of-way (ROW) issues.

For 2018, the ROW budget was P36.7 billion, of which P20.6 billion went to the Department
of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and P16.1 billion to the DOTr.
The National Irrigation Administration was also allocated P30 million for ROW issues this
year, while the National Housing Authority was given P577 million for its Resettlement
Program, part of which will cover cost incurred for ROW acquisitions.

Furthermore, the DBM said it also continued to implement various budget reforms to make
sure that the pace of government spending remains within target.

For one, the agency continued to limit the validity of the budget to one year instead of two to
enforce fiscal discipline and efficiency in using the budget.

The budget department also released notices of cash allocations (NCAs) covering four quarters
at the beginning of the year—shifting from the previous quarterly or semestral release
schedule—to allow the prompt payment of goods and services.

Mapa, in an email to The STAR, said the brisk pace in public spending for infrastructure helped
propel the growth of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

“Government outlays for infrastructure reflects in the strong showing for public construction
in the GDP numbers, which have to some extent helped buttress slowing household final
consumption,” Mapa said.

“As such, the Philippines is now able to rely on other sources of growth, aside from the
traditional household spending, to bring a more balanced attack with both capital formation
(where infrastructure spending is lodged) and government spending,“ he said.

Michael Ricafort, head of the Economics and Industry Research Division of the Rizal
Commercial Banking Corp., echoed Mapa, noting how government spending, especially on
infrastructure, as well as sustained growth in investments offset the slower growth in consumer
spending.

“Increased government spending on infrastructure, especially in areas outside Metro Manila,

would help in further increasing economic growth and development, especially in the
countryside,” Ricafort said.

Economic growth slowed down to 6.1 percent in the third quarter from the revised second
quarter figure of 6.2 percent.

For the whole year, economic managers lowered the country’s GD growth target to 6.5 percent
to 6.9 percent.
Outlook

Overall, Diokno expressed confidence that the Duterte administration is currently on track in
terms of the Build Build Build program’s implementation.

“We’re on-track because when you build, it’s like an S-curve. It’s slow at first then it will
accelerate,” he said.

However, Diokno said the government may need to slow down with its spending for the rest
of the year to keep fiscal deficit within the ceiling of three percent of GDP.

“For the rest of the year, we will slightly slow down because we are already slightly
overspending,” the secretary said.

Based on the quarterly fiscal program of the government, infrastructure spending as of end-
third quarter was already 7.2 percent above program, while total government disbursements
exceeded target by 2.6 percent at P2.49 trillion.

Diokno said he is hoping to accelerate capital expenditures again next year, but this would
depend on Congress’ timely approval of the P3.757 trillion proposed 2019 budget.

The DBM chief earlier warned that failing to pass the budget before the end of the year and
depending on a reenacted budget may reduce disbursements by around P220 billion in 2019 as
it could delay the implementation of infrastructure projects by five months.

Despite this, Diokno said the Development Budget Coordination Committee is expected to
maintain its P3.746 trillion disbursement program for 2019.

“We’ll adjust the quarterly (program), but the full-year (target) is the same,” he said.

He said the government would need to catch up with the construction of projects in the latter
half of the year to achieve its targets.

“There will be a catch-up period. But that will only be allowed if there are no severe weather
disturbances,” he said.
 CANDIDATES URGED TO BARE STAND ON DEATH PENALTY

MANILA, Philippines — Candidates for senator and member of the House of Representatives
in the May elections were urged yesterday to reveal their stand on the proposal to re-impose
the death penalty.

“Voters deserve to know the clear-cut stance of every Senate and House aspirant – whether
they are for or against the return of capital punishment,” said Buhay party-list group Rep. Lito
Atienza.

“It would be unfair – even deceitful – for candidates to court the support of voters who are
opposed to the death penalty, only to betray them later on,” he said.

In March 2017, the House, under the leadership of former speaker Pantaleon Alvarez,
overwhelmingly passed on third and final reading a bill reinstating the death penalty for drug-
related offenses because President Duterte called for its approval.

Among those who voted against it was Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who
subsequently lost her post as deputy speaker in a purge of opponents of the death penalty
Alvarez carried out.

More than a year later, in a coup which, by her father’s own account, was initiated by Davao
City Mayor Sara Duterte, Arroyo would replace Alvarez.

The House-approved death penalty bill has not been enacted because the Senate has been sitting
on it.

Before Congress adjourned for the three-month election campaign two weeks ago, the House
approved a bill re-imposing the death penalty for drug offenders and but later withdrew such
approval.

Atienza fought against the original bill and proposed that the penalty of “qualified life
imprisonment” be imposed instead on worst criminal offenders.

The penalty is equal to imprisonment for 40 years, or until the convict reaches 70 years old,
without the benefit of early release.

Atienza said most Filipinos are against the return of capital punishment as shown in surveys.
“The certainty of capture and punishment is the best deterrence to crime, more than the penalty
itself. And the modern world has come to accept that prolonged imprisonment is just as
effective,” he said.

He said the death penalty “leaves no room for rectification.”

“A dead convict cannot be brought back to life even if somebody else later on confesses to the
crime,” the former Manila mayor stressed.

Congress revived the death penalty for 13 heinous crimes in 1993, only to abolish it in 2006
due to mounting flaws.

Sex offender registration pushed

Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III filed a proposed bill that seeks to ban foreign sex offenders,
including those whose names are listed in local and international sex offenders’ registry, from
entering the Philippines.

Pimentel’s measure would minimize the presence of sex offenders in the country and protect
children from these sexual predators.

“This bill mandates the creation of a sex offender registration and notification program, allows
consular officers to issue the necessary prohibition orders against sex offenders or foreign
nationals in conflict with child protection laws based on available and verifiable intelligence
reports. This measure will fully protect our vulnerable children from these sexual predators,”
he said.

Pimentel said the bill will also allow summary deportation proceedings to be commenced
against those who were able to enter the Philippines despite being among those subject for
exclusion.

Pimentel cited the 2016 Global Study on Sexual Exploitation of Children in Travel and
Tourism which shows that the Philippines is one of the most favored destinations of traveling
sex offenders.

“The same report highlighted the fact that because our legal frameworks are weak, our law
enforcement has allowed them to remain virtually immune from prosecution,” Pimentel said in
filing Senate Bill No. 2192 entitled “An Act Protecting Children From Traveling Sex Offenders
and For Other Purposes.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Nancy Binay said government agencies should start an intensified
information campaign to inform the public of the possible impacts of El Niño, which has been
felt in several provinces in Luzon and Mindanao in the past four months.

Binay said the public should be equipped with information on how to lessen the impact of the
phenomenon.

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration

(PAGASA) said that the weather condition is now affecting the country. El Niño is
characterized by reduced amounts of rainfall.

PAGASA added that dry spell and drought had been observed in several provinces in Luzon
and Mindanao from September 2018 to January 2019. These conditions were said to usher in
El Niño.

Binay expressed alarm on the possible impact of El Niño, especially on farmers.

NPC backing

Reelectionists Sens. Joseph Victor Ejercito and Grace Poe will have the backing of the
Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) for the elections in May, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian said
yesterday.

Aside from Ejercito and Poe, Gatchalian said the NPC will also be supporting former senator
Lito Lapid. He said Ejercito and Lapid have taken their oaths with the NPC.

Former senator Juan Ponce Enrile said if he is elected again as a senator, he would review
certain laws, including those passed during the administration of President Duterte.

One of the laws he would evaluate would be the rice tariffication law, he said in an interview
with radio station dwIZ yesterday.

Lawmakers must see if the tariff imposed on imported rice would “protect the farmers and help
the consumers” since the two sectors hold entirely different interests, he maintained. – With
Cecille Suerte Felipe, Ghio Ong
 CHILDREN AND THE ANTI-ILLEGAL DRUGS CAMPAIGN: WHEN THE CURE
IS WORSE THAN THE DISEASE

Imagine waking up in the middle of the night, men have barged into your bedroom. Their faces
are hidden behind masks, but their guns are displayed on their hips or their hands. The men
drag your father outside the house, while pushing your terrified and screaming mother and
siblings out of the way. The masked men disappear with your father into an awaiting vehicle.
The next morning you hear that his lifeless body had been left on a street, riddled with bullets.
Now imagine you are 11 years old. This happened to John Ryan and his 9 siblings, all of them
younger than 17 years old. Their father, Joaquin, had been found dead the next morning on
Kanduli Street in Manila.

We have heard about the children killed in the government’s anti-illegal drugs campaign, but
we have not heard about the other ways this so-called “drug war” has changed the lives and
futures of thousands of other children. Children who have witnessed acts of violence, children
who are orphaned and traumatized, those at constant risk of direct physical harm due to their
presence in areas where police conduct violent anti-drug operations, and those who experience
discrimination from their communities because their fathers or mothers had been accused of
drug use. The anti-illegal drugs campaign places children at immense risk. This is ironic given
the presumed objective of the anti-illegal drugs campaign is to ostensibly protect the next
generation from the scourge of illegal drug use.

We cannot continue to ignore the immeasurable long-term and potentially cross-generational

impacts of this government’s violent and relentless campaign. If the government fails to protect
children and their families from harm resulting directly from the anti-illegal drugs campaign,
then it has already failed in its principal objective.

Three women, Manuel Borbe's sisters, protect a minor as they weep upon discovering their
brother was killed by unknown gunmen who opened fire against him and a friend at a street
corner in Quezon City, June 16, 2017. Jonathan Cellona, ABS-CBN News

Children killed

According to the Philippine National Police (PNP), 4,251[2] people have been killed during
police operations. And at the time of writing this article, there is no publicly available
information on how many of these victims are below 18 years old. The same agency reports
23,327 deaths under investigation[3] -- of this number, many are homicides related to drugs,
and similarly, little is known about how many of the victims are minors.

Nercy Galicio, 16 a resident of Brgy. Tumana in Navotas, was found along a dark road in
Obando, Bulacan with several gunshot wounds. Vincent Go, ABS-CBN News

The Children’s Legal Rights and Development Center (CLRDC), a children’s rights NGO, has
been documenting specific cases. From July 2016 to August of 2017 they had documented 54
cases. And by December of 2017, it had climbed up to 74. In a study conducted by the Ateneo
School of Government that put together a database of 5,021 killings related to drugs, during
the period from 10 May 2016 to 29 September 2017, the deaths of 26 children were recorded,
7 of them below 15 years old. These include, among others:

● The infant child and five-year-old child of Normin Tantong. Normin was killed with her
children in Cotabato City during the conduct of anti-drug operations in Raja Buayan town in
Maguindanao on 3 May 2017. She was with her children, both were killed by gunshots. May
3, 2017

● Michael Miras, 14 years old, was killed on 2 May 2017 by unidentified gunmen wearing
bonnets, along with his father who was a Barangay Tanod in Old Balara, Quezon City[5].

● Jayross Brondial was a Grade 6 student from Pasay City. He was shot repeatedly by a man
on a motorcycle on 26 September 2017. He was 13 years old. His older brother, who allegedly
used drugs, had been killed earlier in the year. Their mother, who had lost two sons to the drug
war, believes that Jayross was targeted because he had been mistaken for some other drug
personality[6].

● On 24 July 2016, Richter Baykin, a 16-year-old boy and student of Pines City National High
School, was killed by policemen during a buy-bust operation.

Children orphaned

Jocelyn and her children at the wake of her husband, Cesar Carillo, who was abducted by
masked men on June 6, then found dead the next day with his body showing signs of torture.
Jonathan Cellona, ABS-CBN News

Most of the victims killed due to the anti-drug campaign are men, and they are often fathers
who support their families financially. There are also numerous known cases where women
who are killed leave behind small children, as well as tragic cases when both parents are killed.
Since tens of thousands of people have been killed, this means there are also tens of thousands
of children who have lost fathers or mothers, who have been orphaned by violence.

There is no official count of children orphaned as a result of drug-related killings, but as early
as December 2016, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) had come up
with an estimate of 18,000 children[7]. This estimate was based on a count of around 6,000
people killed, and the average number of children in a family (3 children). We recalculated this
estimate based on a more conservative set of assumptions and using current data reported by
the PNP. Reports have a specific number of drug-related deaths due to police operations, and
23,327 homicides under investigation. Further, the police report that for the homicides, motive
has been determined for 13,243 killings, and the rest do not yet have an established motive.

Based on these numbers, around 20% of the cases are drug-related. We assume that each person
killed has 2 children (instead of 3, the national average). Table 1 below shows the likely number
of children orphaned, with the deaths of one or both parents in the Philippines’ anti-illegal
drugs campaign.

If 20% of the homicides under investigation are deemed drug-related, in addition to those killed
in police operations, at least 18,398 children have been orphaned one parent as a direct result
of this anti-drug campaign. If the scenario is that 50% of homicides under investigation end up
being drug-related after motive has been established, then the estimated number of orphans is
32,395.

Lisa cradles her daughter as her other children sleep during Leo Baldomero's, wake. Leo was
abducted along with a friend, by masked men on June 6, then found dead a day later with a
bullet-hole on his head and his body showing signs of beating. He was one of two suspected
victims of drug related killings in Navotas, June, 9, 2017. Jonathan Cellona, ABS-CBN News

Table. Estimate of number of children orphaned by drug-related killings

Source: Authors’ calculations.

All of these estimates are based on what are likely under-reported statistics of parents that have
been killed to date. The killings continue unabated, and as a result, there will be tens of
thousands of children who will grow up without a father or a mother -- knowing that their
parent was brutally murdered. Whether they witness these deaths first-hand or not, there will
be trauma, stress, and long-term psychological harm. In addition, we also expect catastrophic
economic shocks to the family affected, especially when the victims who are killed are
breadwinners.

Children processed, detained, and listed

A drug peddler and a 15-year-old minor were arrested for alleged drug peddling by the City
Drug enforcement unit (CDEU) during a buy-bust operation in Bacolod City on June 25, 2017.
Martian Muyco, ABS-CBN News

A boy listens to a prayer before he and other relatives visit the grave of their loved ones, all
minors, who were killed a year ago during the government's war on drugs campaign, at the
Tala Cemetery in Caloocan, east of Manila on December 28, 2017, as the world commemorates
Holy Innocents' Day. Noel Celis, AFP

According to the PNP-WCPC (PNP-Women and Children Protection Center) in April 2016,
since the beginning of the campaign, 26,907 children surrendered as part of Oplan Double
Barrel/Tokhang Operations. Except for 946 children, all had surrendered in 2016. The vast
majority are boys (94%) and 3,279 of these children are 14 years old or younger. By dint of
labeling these thousands of children below 18 years as “surrenderers” formally reflected in the
system and in reports, it implies that the PNP had engaged in some form of listing of these
individuals.

For its part, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) reports in June 2018 that they
had “rescued” 1,155 minors during the conduct of their operations. Based on the PNP manual
of operations, children who have broken the law are called “rescued” and not suspects,
criminals, or even surrenderers.

Early on in the campaign, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) reported
on the tens of thousands of minors who had surrendered during the first two months of Oplan
Double Barrel. The regions with the highest numbers of children that had turned themselves in
are Central Visayas (3,971), Northern Mindanao (3,783), and Zamboanga Peninsula (2,196).
All of these regions have small populations relative to the National Capital Region (NCR),
which only reported 276 children surrenderers.

In total, we are talking about over 28,000 children who have, in some way, been entered in the
enforcement system of drug operations. Little is known about how these children were treated,
why they were even included as part of the listed surrenderers. The basis for their listing
remains unclear, and the protection of their rights to privacy and confidentiality as children that
had contact with law enforcement also remains in question. The burden falls on the PNP to
show the public and children’s rights watch-groups that laws and procedures relating to
children were strictly followed.

There are manuals and protocols for how children should be treated by the PNP, these are
codified in the “PNP Manual in Handling Cases of Children at Risk and Children in Conflict
with the Law” adopted by the institution on October 2016. Bringing minors into police stations
is the absolute last resort, acceptable only after options of counseling through parents,
guardians, barangay officers have been exhausted. Section 6.2 of the manual states “Children
in conflict with the law shall never be detained in a police station lock-up, or referred to jails
managed by BJMP or any law enforcement agency, provincial jails and other similar
facilities[9].” (emphasis added).

Children recruited into the drugs trade

Narconomics, an analysis of the illegal drugs trade using an economics lens, emphasized how
drug dealers faced severe human resource (HR) challenges, given the high staff turnover in the
narcotics trade – mostly due to the mortal risks involved. Drug lords in Latin America and the
United States have therefore turned to an unlikely source for talent and skills training: prisons.

In this light, lowering the age of criminality in the Philippines to 9 years old should not be
accepted. Throwing children in jail cells with hardened criminals may actually strengthen drug
lords’ ability to recruit fresh talent – hardening youth who could have otherwise been saved
from a life of crime and drugs.