“Prison is no place for children!” 
So declared Fr. Pierre Tritz, SJ, during one of his then frequent visits to the city jails in the early 1990’s. He saw for himself poor children, many barely in their teens, behind bars with no idea how and when they would be set free.Many of these children were in jail for having committed some petty crime, mostly theft. Some also found themselves in the company of hardened criminals in congested jails.
Moved with compassion, Fr. Tritz gathered some of his young lawyer friends and established Albert Schweitzer Association Philippines in 1995. ASAP’s volunteer lawyers began providing free legal assistance to indigent children to get them out of Metro Manila jails.
ASAP also put up in mid-1999 a rehabilitation center, Buhay Kalikasan (Life in Nature), in Luisiana, Laguna, for children released from detention through the efforts of its lawyers. (Due to mounting security problems in the province as well as other concerns, however, ASAP suspended indefinitely by late 2007 its rehab operations in Laguna and transferred its five remaining wards to ERDA’s Tuklasan Center for street children in Manila. All five have since been reintegrated with their respective families.)
Then came the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of 2006 (RA 9344). Fr. Tritz was among those invited to witness its being signed into law at Malacañang Palace. Hailed as a landmark legislation for the protection of the rights and welfare of child offenders, RA 9344 is anchored on the principle that child offenders should not be punished like common criminals but instead be made to undergo a rehabilitation process. (Child offenders are referred to in the new law as ‘Children In Conflict with the Law’, or CICL.)
 Under its provisions, CICL 15 years old and below will be criminally exempt, while CICL aged 15 to 18 can be criminally charged only if they are found to have acted out the crime with discernment. CICL are also to undertake a ‘diversion program’ in community centers (youth homes) instead of being detained.
The Juvenile Justice Welfare Council (JJWC), a nine-member body which oversees the implementation of the new law, worked out and issued the implementing rules and regulations. ERDA Foundation, one of two NGOs chosen to serve in the JJWC, is represented by its Executive Director, Ms Dolora Cardeño.
Implementing this new law met with unusual challenges. For one, the number of CICL to be serviced: As of July 2007, per official records, the children languishing in jails and detention centers throughout the country numbered 4,039. (The actual count could have easily run up to a few thousand more.) Then there was this great need for facilities for rehabilitation of CICL to take place.
It therefore seemed natural for ASAP and ERDA Foundation to put their expertise together at the service of CICL in a synergy project which they named Project BK-RESTORE. BK stands for ‘Buhay Kalikasan’, and RESTORE, for ‘Revitalizing and Expanding Services Towards Rehabilitation and Reintegration’. With ERDA Foundation as the lead proponent, this project is initially funded for three years by Vlaams International Centrum (VIC) of Belgium.
Designed with the RA 9344 provisions in mind, Project BK-RESTORE has three components. The first is concerned with getting CICL out of jails and detention centers. The second, concerning their rehabilitation, requires the operation of a youth home. The third is the advocacy component.
 The BK-RESTORE Youth Home, located in Tondo, Manila, was formally inaugurated on February 23, 2009, with Fr. Pierre Tritz, SJ, and Fr. Johnny Go, SJ, as guests of honor. Also in attendance were representatives from UNICEF, VIC, Dept. of Social Welfare and Development, Dept. of Justice, Manila City Hall, partner NGOs, the Tondo community, and benefactors and friends of ERDA. At the Youth Home, CICL released from detention but must undergo intervention programs in an institutional setting are provided residential care with an integrated rehabilitation program.
Designed with flexibility to suit the individual needs of CICL, BK-RESTORE’s ‘Balik-Sigla at Pag-asa Program’ (BSPP) has a set of intervention programs that include educational assistance, Alternative Learning System (ALS) review sessions and vocational training as needed.
Serving as a halfway-house, the Youth Home can accommodate as much as 25 CICL at any given time. (These center-based CICL live there for at most 45 days.) It also serves community-based CICL, that is, those who go through the rehab program provided at the Youth Home but live with their families.
The Youth Home, which had a soft opening in October 2008 with eight center-based CICL, currently serves 12 center-based and five community-based CICL.
Project BK-RESTORE has served 35 center-based and 19 community-based CICL, or a total of 54 (including the current 17), since it started in January 2008 at the ERDA Tuklasan Center. With a 45-day turnover period at the newly blessed Youth Home in Tondo, it plans to serve at least 300 CICL during the three-year project term. For the Project’s advocacy component, ERDA-ASAP teams have been orienting barangay communities and NGOs on the principles of restorative justice, diversion and other provisions of RA 9344. They also assist in organizing and strengthening Barangay Councils for the Protection of Children. Fr. Tritz still couldn’t get over his experience just a few years ago of finding a five-year-old girl in jail for stealing some bread because she was hungry. It is for children like her and for those still in jails and detention centers that Fr. Tritz and the ERDA Group look to Project BK-RESTORE’s doing its best in helping keep children away from prison. - Anna Francesca O. Tadeo |
