THE LOVE, care, protection and well-being of children is a top priority for any loving parent anywhere. Most parents will do all they can to ensure that their children are cared for, protected, educated and kept healthy. This is especially true in the Philippines.
But even in the Philippines, children are not free from facing all sorts of dangers, especially the more hidden and insidious ones. In a report, titled “Situation Analysis of Children in the Philippines,” the United Nations Children’s Fund said eight in 10 children have experienced some form of violence, including physical, psychological, sexual or online abuse. And one in every four experienced sexual abuse and violence, it added.
These numbers are really shocking, and that child abuse is mostly ignored, covered up or denied is even more so. Children are not always believed when they tell of being abused. They are even threatened with punishment if they ever claim that.
The failure of adults to believe and report child sexual abuse should be regarded as aiding and abetting a serious crime.
Mothers who learn that their child is abused, especially if the abuser is her husband, live-in partner or father, are frequently not supportive of their offspring. This is more suffering inflicted on the abused child and could be a criminal offense under Section 10 (a) of Republic Act (RA) 7610, or “Other Acts of Neglect, Abuse, Cruelty or Exploitation and Other Conditions Prejudicial to the Child’s Development.”
When mothers and relatives muster the courage to report the abuse and trafficking of a child, there is a chance to attain justice. But due to the current court system, where there is a huge backlog that the Supreme Court is attempting to remedy, child-abuse cases can take many years to reach a judgment.
In their collective wisdom and desire for “speedy justice” and to expedite criminal trials, the Supreme Court introduced the Revised Guidelines for Continuous Trial of Criminal Cases in 2017. This was to reform these tortoise-paced trials and ensure the “speedy disposition of cases.”
However, these reforms have not resulted in continuous hearings. Most courts strive to meet deadlines in each case, like reaching a deadline to have a pretrial, trial proper and timetable for decision-making or promulgation.
But what is needed is to hold continuous court hearings, daily or weekly, and finish each case within a reasonable time frame. At present, some trials proceed at a leisurely pace. Some judges even approve and allow defense or prosecution lawyers constant postponements, and others are taking more than three years to resolve a child-abuse case.
Postponements favor the defense attorney, and even a private prosecutor can benefit personally. They earn more money for every hearing, so the more postponements there are, the better. (To be continued)/PN
