SEN. Francis Pangilinan has corrected a disinformation that minors cannot be prosecuted if they commit crimes under the Juvenile Justice Act of 2006 that she authored.
In his interpellation of Sen. Robin Padilla’s privilege speech calling to lower the minimum age of criminal liability to 10 from 15 last Wednesday, Pangilinan said “fake news and disinformation” have affected the people’s understanding of the provisions of the law.
He said that the Juvenile Justice Act of 2006, which was amended in 2013, provides punishment for minors who commit crimes, contrary to Padilla’s belief.
Padilla said he has personally witnessed when three minors — aged 13, 15, and 16 — were brought to a reformation center after they were arrested for the rape of a 13-year-old girl, but brazenly told the arresting officers that they cannot be penalized since they are minors.
Pangilinan debunked this, citing as an example the Maguad killings, wherein the minors involved were sent to jail.
Pangilinan was referring to the killings of Crizelle Orbe Maguad and Crizville “Boyboy” Maguad in their home in Barangay Bagintapay, M’lang, Cotabato in December 2021.
The family’s 16-year-old adopted daughter, identified as Janice, who initially claimed to have survived the attack, later confessed that she and another minor planned and committed the crime out of their envy of the siblings. They were both sentenced to a maximum of 37 years’ imprisonment.
Pangilinan said it was wrong for minors to believe that they can freely commit crimes and not get arrested and prosecuted for being underage.
He said minors involved in crimes will have to be in “mandatory confinement of not less than one year,” which can be extended to three years and will be tried in court when they reach the right age of 18 upon establishing that they acted with discernment.
Under the law, a child above 15 years and below 18 shall be exempt from criminal liability and be subjected to an intervention program, unless he or she acted with discernment. As such, he or she shall be subjected to the appropriate proceedings in accordance with the law.
“In other words, the belief that minors cannot be penalized is not true because the two [minors] involved in the Maguad killings were penalized. We do not want this [disinformation] to happen),” he said.
