By ARIEL C. SEBELLINO
SEVENTEEN-year-old B-Jay has not attended school for the last two years. Instead, B-Jay helps his father David in occasional carpentry works in some subdivisions in Cavite to augment the family’s income.
By ARIEL C. SEBELLINO
MARICEL Oriña, a self-employed housewife and mother of two boys, can only sigh in exasperation over the lack of sensitivity on how children are portrayed on television.
By CARLO FIGUEROA
HUMAN rights groups continue to voice their opposition to moves to amend the country’s juvenile justice law.
This comes even after the House of Representatives on June 4 passed on third and final reading House Bill 6052 proposing to lower the age of criminal liability from 15 to 12 years old.
N0 one would think that 17-year-old Ariel Bowagan was a child offender before he became the Sangguniang Kabataan (SK)chairman of Barangay Dontogan in Baguio City.
IF numbers is a reflection of love, the Philippines should be a nation that loves children. There are more than 31 million Filipino children, comprising 31percent of the country’s total population of over 101 million. But many of these children suffer violation of their rights.
ALL that gloom and rain for days at Fontana Leisure Park in Clark, Pampanga did not dampen the enthusiasm of child representatives from 10 countries who participated at the recent first Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Children’s Forum.
THERE was one scene in the recently concluded television soap opera Momay that belittled children studying in public schools: Character actress Glydel Mercado, playing the role of a mother, told her nephew, “O ikaw Jay-jay, sa public school ka nalang mag-aral kasi bobo ka naman (You, Jay-jay, will go to public school because you’re dumb).”
