Saying it is the state’s policy to protect children, President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered the police to “arrest” minors loitering the streets.
Duterte said the Department of Social Welfare and Development and barangay officials should take custody of the rounded up minors.
“Below 18, you arrest the teenagers there around loitering because we have to protect our children. Drugs are everywhere,” the President said in a speech Monday evening.
“So 18 and below are minors. You take them into custody not to arrest, but for their own safety to protect them. Call the DSWD and the barangay officials and tell them to take care of the minors.”
“Arrest them for their own protection. They are not being arrested for any crime. It’s for their own good that they are arrested. Under the principle of parens patriae, which is the principle bedrock for protecting people, you are all weak. We can take custody of the minors to protect them under the principle of parens patriae—the father of the nation,” the President added.
Duterte said loiterers, whether minor or not, are not exempted from the parens patriae principle.
“They are not to be treated differently. They said that they are mere loiterers. Are you more intelligent than me? Wait for your own government,” he said.
“We call them istambay—that’s the word. That is my order. And you continue to frisk people who are there in the streets and that is legal. Until such time, that is my order. Do not believe in the criticisms. Do not read it. It’s none of your business to be reading what they are talking about. It’s our business to follow what we are ordered to do,” the President added.
For his part, Senator Benigno Aquino IV on Tuesday underscored the need to probe the government’s policy against loiterers following the inconsistent statements of the President.
He questioned the government’s decision to continue its campaign against loiterers even without legal basis.
“Maraming mahihirap ang na-agrabyado at namatay pa si Tisoy, bakit pa nila itutuloy?” Aquino said, referring to the death of Genesis “Tisoy” Argoncillo who died in the custody of the Quezon City Police District.
He described as “alarming” the continuing campaign against loiterers because, he said, its basis remained unclear.
Those liable for the death of Argoncillo should first be held accountable.
Aquino made his statement after Duterte reiterated his order to the Philippine National Police to ignore the critics and continue its campaign against loiterers.
Earlier, he said he did not order the arrests and that “loitering is not a crime.”
With Duterte’s inconsistent pronouncements, Aquino said, there was a need for the Senate to investigate and clarify the matter.
With the government’s changing policy against loiterers, Aquino said, the Senate must conduct a probe for clarification. He said the public and even the PNP were confused with the government’s conflicting statements on the matter.
Aquino has submitted Senate Resolution 772 seeking to investigate the government’s policy against loitering, which he called discriminatory and anti-poor.
He urged the Committee on Public Order and Dangerous Drugs, led by Senator Panfilo Lacson, to investigate the matter to protect ordinary Filipinos from unjust, discriminatory and abusive policies and practices.
“There is a need to assess whether the PNP’s anti-tambay campaign, as well as the local ordinances on which they are supposedly based, are consistent with national laws and the Constitution,” he said.
Aquino filed the resolution days after Argoncillo died in the custody of the Quezon City Police District. Argoncillo was arrested on June 15 for allegedly causing alarm and scandal, but died four days later.
The PNP first claimed that his death was due to self-inflicted trauma, and then changed it to suffocation due to the severe congestion in the prison cells.
But Argoncillo’s death certificate revealed he died from multiple blunt force trauma to his neck, head, chest and upper extremities. He died after he was mauled by fellow inmates.