"Care, Not Cages: Akbayan Youth Condemns Padilla’s Push to Lower Criminal Liability Age"

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In a fiery rebuke to what they describe as a “cruel and anti-poor” proposal, Akbayan Youth has sounded the alarm against Senator Robin Padilla’s controversial bill seeking to lower the age of criminal responsibility in the Philippines to a shocking 10 years old.

The youth organization minced no words, calling the bill not only a misguided attempt at justice, but a dangerous assault on children’s rights that threatens to further victimize the country’s most vulnerable—its poor and neglected youth.

“You don’t solve crime by jailing children. You solve it by fixing the homes that are broken, the schools that are failing, and a government that turns a blind eye to their suffering,”

declared Khylla Meneses, Akbayan Youth Secretary General.

With this bold statement, Meneses laid bare the deeper crisis afflicting the country: one that is rooted not in delinquency, but in systemic neglect, inequality, and poverty. To imprison a child, she suggests, is to criminalize the consequences of a society that has failed to nurture and protect them in the first place.

Children, Not Criminals

Senator Padilla’s proposal mirrors an old, repeatedly defeated initiative—one that critics argue caters to punitive populism rather than genuine justice reform. For Akbayan Youth, the move reeks of performative politics and an utter disregard for the science of child development, psychological trauma, and rehabilitation.

“Children in conflict with the law are not simply set free. The Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act already provides for mechanisms like Bahay Pag-asa, where young offenders undergo intervention and rehabilitation,” Meneses explained.

Indeed, existing laws already allow for accountability—but with discernment, and with the child’s best interest at heart. The courts can, and do, determine whether a child acted with criminal intent. Yet, instead of strengthening these systems, Padilla’s bill seeks to shortcut justice by stripping children of protection.

A System Rigged Against the Poor

The youth organization also highlighted a critical dimension often buried in political discourse: the class bias embedded in criminal justice.

Lowering the age of criminal responsibility will not target rich delinquents hiding behind lawyers and privilege. It will ensnare children from slums and squatters—those forced by circumstance into survival mode, those exploited by syndicates or abandoned by institutions meant to safeguard them.

“Only the poor will end up behind bars,” said Meneses. “And the prisons will keep growing, not because we solved crime—but because we punished poverty.”

In this grim future, juvenile detention centers could become warehouses of wasted potential, filled with children who needed guidance, not incarceration.

Call to Courage: Tackle the Root, Not the Rot

Akbayan Youth is not merely rejecting a bill. They are issuing a rallying cry to lawmakers to show courage—not by posturing tough on crime, but by confronting its root causes.

What they demand is investment in:

Strengthening families, not tearing them further apart

Improving schools, not making them pipelines to prison

Providing mental health and social services, not metal bars and isolation

Expanding community-based intervention programs, not expanding prison budgets

“We need care, not cages,” Meneses reiterated. “No one has the right to preach about justice if they can turn their backs on the youth.”

Children Are the Nation’s Future—Not Its Scapegoats

Senator Padilla may believe he’s striking a blow against lawlessness. But if this bill passes, it may well become a historical stain on the nation’s conscience—a chilling reminder that, in times of moral crisis, some leaders chose to punish children instead of saving them.

Akbayan Youth stands as a powerful reminder that the nation’s youth are not criminals-in-waiting—they are citizens in need of nurturing, equity, and hope.

Their message is clear: Treat children like children. Help them rise, don’t cast them down. Reform, don’t repress. Heal, don’t harm.

Because a country that cages its future, has no future at all.

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