A party-list lawmaker on Wednesday denounced what he described as “excessive force and inhumane treatment” to children during a supposed “rescue operation” staged by police operatives at the University of San Carlos campus in Cebu City on Monday.
In a privilege speech, Deputy Speaker and 1PACMAN Rep. Michael Romero sought a congressional inquiry into the incident.
He said the result of the raid emphasized the need to put in place standard operating procedures in the conduct of police operations involving minors or staged in the presence of children.
The Commission on Human Rights has already dispatched an investigation team to look into the situation involving the alleged rescue of Lumad children in a university in Cebu City.
“Given the different claims involving the incident, our interest is to pin down the truth and look forward to the cooperation of all parties concerned as we move forward in our independent investigation,” lawyer-spokesperson Jacqueline Ann de Guia said in a statement.
Romero also voiced concern over the media branding of the “lumad children” who were the object of the Police Regional Office 7 at the Talamban campus of USC on February 14.
“I take exception to this branding. The minors involved are children, Period,” said Romero, president of the Partylist Coalition Foundation Inc., the second largest political bloc in the Lower House.
He said “The threat of violence extends to all children and not just lumad children.
“I implore our brave and upright police officers, in all their future
Operations, to please, regardless of ethnicity, religion and social status, spare the children,” Romero said.
On Monday, police operatives reportedly “violently intruded” at the Talamban campus of the USC, supposedly to “rescue” the children from communist influence.
But Romero said the police raid was far from being a rescue operation as he presented in the House plenary video clips and photographs taken on the incident.
“On the contrary, there was much screaming, cries for help, commotion and struggle,” Romero said as he described the police operation as “chaotic.”
“Clearly, Mr. Speaker, there is something remiss in the subject police operation. There are too many questions wanting to be asked as clearly, the subject incident led to distress, agony and even trauma to the children who were caught in the middle of the police operations,” he said.
News reports indicated that 25 individuals, including 15 minors, were hauled into police vehicles following the raid. The minors were students in Lumad schools in Mindanao who were evacuated to Cebu city after their schools were destroyed by the military.
Citing studies conducted by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, Romero said violence against children significantly “undermines the social and economic development of communities and nations.
“The global economic costs resulting from physical, psychological and sexual violence against children are estimated to be as high as $7 trillion—roughly eight percent of the global GDP annually,” he said.
A separate study conducted by the National Institute of Justice under the US Department of Justice showed that exposure to violence adversely affects a child’s “emotional, psychological and even physical development.”
Romero appealed to law enforcers to spare the children from acts of aggression and from undue hostility and from violence. Maricel V. Cruz and Rio N. Araja