Reducing the criminal liability to 9 years old: Position paper

I am part of the debating team in our section and we have leveled up into the final debate against the Senior High School (STEM-maritime team). Our topic is "Proposed that reducing the criminal liability to 9 years old". Me and my team was assigned on the "negative team". In the proper debate there are 4 speakers (Necessity, beneficiality, practicability and rebuttalist)Hence, we have to fight for our stand regarding on the issue. Our fight against the maritime team is quite challenging since all 4 of them are boys and they are 4 girls on my team including myself. We gave them a good fight. We ended up getting the "best speaker" and "the best rebuttal". So, I just wanted to share you my position paper as being the second speaker of our team.

Here it is:

Reducing the criminal liability to 9 years old: Position paper
By: Vanessa Joyce Ouano

Proponents of the negative side believe that reducing the criminal liability to 9 years old cannot help reducing the crimes of the society. But ladies and gentlemen, is the implementation of the criminalization of the 9 years old could help reducing the crimes or could it be a another problem in our society?

To decide the course of this argument, let me greet our distinguished board of judges, fair moderator, equally competent debaters on the affirmative side, and to the Filipinos at large, ladies and gentlemen Good afternoon.

Resolve that reducing the criminal liability to 9 years old be implemented in the Philippines. Ladies and gentlemen, we the negative side STAND FIRM that it is NON-BENEFICIAL, because of the compelling grounds. First, the law itself is not beneficial because it threatens the welfare of the children. Second, there are no correctional facilities to house the convicted children and lastly, it is costly.

I, the second speaker of the affirmative team will now lay to you the structured of my contention.

First, the law itself is not beneficial because it threatens the welfare of the children. According to UNICEF that “Reducing the minimum age of criminal responsibility goes against the best interest of the child and threatens the well-being of the most vulnerable children. Putting children in jail has long lasting damaging effects on their cognitive, psychological and neurological health, harming their overall development. It further stigmatizes them as criminals and creates an environment that triggers repeat offense, often extending to adulthood.” Since it alters the development of the child, it does not secure change from a Childs attitude because the environment that he/she is exposed to. Instead there should be often methods to rehabilitate these children and put them under core and guidance from professionals. So as not to let the child grow to a violent environment.

Second, there are no correctional facilities to house the convicted children. To cater these juvenile cases there should be sufficient facilities but according to the “BJMP actual jail population data” From 124,363 prisoners in December 2016 it merely increased into 131,923 as of January 31,2017. All of these prisoners are allocated in 466 jails with a 4.7 M per inmates in the whole regions of the Philippines. In fact only 20,399 prisoners are the ideal capacity of all of this jails and 544% congestion. How much more if we imprisoned these children, where will they be put? It is been implied that there are no sufficient facilities for the convicted children leading the government to expand the prison cells that could cost a big amount of money since it has not been allocated in the Budget given to the prisoners which leads to my last point.

Third, it is costly. More children detained mean a higher cost of public expenditure, and an even higher social cost of the children repeating their offenses or committing more serious crime. According to the senate, 74K year budget per prisoner is thrice bigger than the government spending per student. Government spending for one prisoner in jail is far greater than what it spends to keep one student in school. Aside from this, making another law is costly because it leads to revising the Philippine Constitution. So the implementation of the criminalization of 9 years old cannot be a great help in our country especially when we are still developing and we need resources and a fair budget for the different projects that can be a greater help in our society.

Let me emphasize once more, reducing of the criminal liability to 9 years old is NOT BENEFICIAL because it does not answer to reduce the crime, it threatens the child welfare and making the government spending more and more on food and health care of these inmates.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am now ready for interpellation.

I hope It can help you guys.