Youth gang robberies reflect a lack of law enforcement

Four boys — suspected of being part of a criminal youth gang known as “Batang Hamog" — were picked off the streets of Guadalupe in Makati City and were turned over to the Makati Social Welfare and Development (MSWD) office on Friday. Batang Hamog members prey on vehicles stuck in traffic, opening unlocked doors and robbing the drivers and passengers by snatching the valuables from their victims. CCTV cameras of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) have captured the gang in their modus operandi in Guadalupe then clambering up the mesh-wire fences of the Metropolitan Railway Transit (MRT) tracks in the middle of Epifanio Delos Santos Avenue (EDSA) to elude arrest. The four boys, 14 to 19, are but a handful of several youths the authorities have apprehended. Their relatives have tried in vain to keep them from being hauled off to the Makati Police Station.
Juvenile intervention program A female relative of one of the boys told GMA News TV that the authorities got the wrong boys, insisting that Batang Hamog gang members come from areas outside Guadalupe. The boys themselves told authorities that they come from the nearby municipalities of Taguig, Montalban, and Pateros, but that most of them used to live in Makati’s Laperal Compound. The street-hardened boys denied they were the ones shown in the MMDA’s CCTV videos, but admitted that for a time they had done the same after following in the footsteps of their older peers. MSWD head Marjorie De Veyra told GMA News TV that her office has a legally mandated “intervention program" for children in conflict with the law and that they would call the boys’ parents to come over. The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has a process for children in conflict with the law and the boys won’t be released to the custody of their parents without first finishing the DSWD intervention program.
Exempted under the law Section 6 of the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of 2006 (Republic Act 9344) provides that “a child fifteen years of age or under at the time of the commission of the offense shall be exempt from criminal liability." But that such a child in conflict with the law “shall be subjected to an intervention program pursuant to Section 20 of [RA 9344]." Jessica Soho of GMA News TV’s “SONA" noted Friday that critics have called for amending this provision of RA 9344. “Pero ang batas nga ba talaga ang problema? O ang maayos na pagpapatupad nito?" he said. “Signatory po tayo ng UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, na naniniwalang ang mga ‘children in conflict with the law’ ay mga biktima din lang — naiimpluwensiyahan at wala pang kakayahang mag-isip ng tama para sa kanilang sarili," Soho pointed. “Ang dapat sigurong repasuhin, hindi ang batas kundi ang mga mala-antigo nang pamamaraan ng ating kapulisan sa paglutas sa mga krimen at pagtugis sa mga criminal," she said. “Unahin ang dapat unahin. Panahon na para isaayos ang law enforcement at mga law enforcers ng bansa." — Marlon Anthony Tonson/ELR/VS,GMA News