AKO Bicol Party-List Rep. Alfredo Garbin Jr. renewed his call Tuesday for the swift passage of House Bill 10330.
This comes after a shooting incident at the Ateneo de Zamboanga University (AdZU) Junior High School resulted in the death of two students.
Initial reports said a junior high school AdZU student brought high-powered firearms onto campus premises and opened fire inside a classroom, killing a fellow student before taking his own life.
“Twice in two months, our children have died where they should have been safest,” Garbin said, urging Congress to act on the measure he filed with Ako Bicol Rep. Jan Franz Norbert Joselito Chan on June 28.
The bill was filed days after the June 22 shooting at San Jose National High School in Tacloban City, where three children were killed and about 20 others were wounded.
The measure seeks to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 12 for children proven to have acted with discernment in the most serious offenses. It also defines discernment and establishes a rebuttable presumption of discernment for specified grave crimes.
The measure seeks to hold parents and guardians accountable for grossly negligent supervision, including allowing children access to firearms and deadly weapons. It would also impose liability on firearm owners or others who provide a child with a firearm or negligently allow access to one later used in a crime.
The bill mandates online-safety and media-literacy education and school-safety and threat-assessment protocols involving the Department of Education, Philippine National Police and local governments.
Garbin said existing child-centered protections, including diversion programs, suspended sentences, confidentiality of records and the Bahay Pag-asa system, would remain.
“This is not a bill of vengeance. Justice is not vengeance, but neither is mercy a license,” Garbin said, calling on House leaders to fast-track committee deliberations and Congress to act before another school becomes a crime scene.
