Luke 18:16-17
To value life is something
that is written and engraved in the soul of every human person, to believers
and non-believers alike. For us Christians, the sacredness of each human life
is inherent in man’s nature, given the fact that he is created in the very
image and likeness of God. No wonder we celebrate whenever a baby is born and
we thank God for this grace of life that He freely gives out of his
immeasurable love and kindness. Just as we value life, the more we should value
the life of children. Each one of them has the potentiality to become
productive members of the community, but only if they are properly cared for
and guided towards achieving their dreams and aspirations. Thus, special attention
and respect must be given to the well-being of children, to their personal
dignity and their rights.
Asked what he
wants to become in the future, a child normally visualizes himself having
either a high-paying job which can enable him to acquire the things he would
like to have, a decent career where he may be of help to his neighbors like
being a doctor, a lawyer, or a teacher. Children are our symbol of hope. Many
of us can relate to this because we were all once upon a time children and we
were once upon a time very hopeful (In my wild imagination, I once dreamt of becoming
a flight steward and a priest both at
the same time). But looking at the present Philippines scenario, can we really
say that every child experiences a real childhood? Does every single one of
them enjoy the privileges and the rights of being a child?
According to a
recent report of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), as of October
2011, there are 5.49 million working children aged five to 17 years. More than
55.1 percent or 3.02 million were counted as child laborers while 2.99 million
are exposed to hazardous forms of child labor. This report comes from Labor
Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz, citing a
recent survey done by the National Statistics Office (NSO) funded by the
International Labor Organization (ILO).[1]
Sixty percent of these child laborers are in the agriculture sector. But what
is alarming is some 2 million child laborers are exposed to hazardous
environments. In their fragile physical condition, their health is dangerously
exposed to chemicals, biohazards like bacteria that cause disease or physical
peril (This reminds me of the children working at the firecrackers factory in
my hometown Bulacan). There are also some who involve themselves in drug
trafficking. And some even become child soldiers. What is most saddening is the
reality that many of these children are trapped in the indecency of
prostitution, pornography, and sex tourism. At their tender age, they already
lose their innocence by participating in this lewd industry.
With or without
this statistics made available through surveys, it is a well-known fact that
child labor indeed is one of the many problems that our nation is currently
facing. We are everyday faced with it. There are children risking their lives
jumping into a moving jeepney to wipe the shoes of its passengers to ask for a
peso or two from them. And there are also those selling sampaguita in church compounds even up to very late hours so that
they may have money for school the next day. There are those who literally
insert their heads in filthy garbage bins or dive in the mountains of trash in
order to scavenge anything that can be sold in the junk shops. Or try asking
your helpers in your own homes. Are they in the legal age to work for you?
Sad but this is
what’s going on right now. Some children do not think and act the way they are
supposed to. They think and act as though they are mature individuals who can
take care of themselves. But the truth is they must undergo the normal life
development to attain integral maturity. They are not given the chance to
experience how it is to be a child. And how can we say they are still a child
when they are not treated as one? “Legally, a child is understood as a person
below eighteen years of age (R.A. 7610). He is someone who needs adult
protection for physical, psychological and intellectual development for his own
good and the good for the community where he lives.”[2]
Many social doctrines of the church call out for respect with regards to the
dignity of children. Pope John Paul II’s Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio states, in the family, which is a community of
persons, special attention must be devoted to the children by developing a
profound esteem for their personal dignity, and a great respect and generous
concern for their rights.
Family plays an
important role in safeguarding the rights and dignity of the children. The
family, being the vital cell of society, is the “primary place of ‘humanization’ for the person and society and the
cradle of life and love” (John Paul II, Christifidelis
Laici, 40).[3]
And family becomes a sanctuary of life when it is founded on conjugal love. The
home becomes “the place in which life –
the gift of God – can be properly welcomed and protected against many attacks
to which it is exposed, and can develop in accordance with what constitutes
authentic human growth” (John Paul II, Centesimus
Annus, 39).[4] The
parents have the primary responsibility for the proper and normal growth and development
of their children’s physical, intellectual, emotional, and social well-being
and even the formation of religious belief of their children. They have to
provide a healthy environment and proper avenues for their children where they
can truly be children – learning, playing, and just being themselves.
Unfortunately,
not every child is born to an economically able family. There are many who
belong to rural and urban poor families. Their parents do not have the means to
support them with the essential things which are needed for their proper growth
and development. Thus, at a very young age, many engage in labor to earn a
little bit of cash so as to help their parents in their daily needs. Culture
can also be a factor why there are minors who choose to work. In one of my
exposures in a far flung province, I lived with a family where the children
already help in sustaining their family’s daily living. The girls work as house
helpers and the boys work in the mountains cultivating their land. Though some
of them still go to school, they would usually reach only up to the sixth
grade. If asked whether they would like to finish their studies and be
professionals someday, their answer is yes. One was quick to say that
unfortunately, their parents, because of their poverty, would rather make them
work. The mindset of their parents is “Why send their kids to school if in the
future they will just get married?” It’s a pity but this is what’s happening in
their place and it has already become a culture. And yet, the parents cannot be
blamed for this kind of thinking. They are forced by their situation and if
they have a better option, they will surely choose what they know is best for
their children.
Hand in hand
with the children’s parents, the government must also ensure that the dignity
and rights of the children are strictly safeguarded. “The rights of children must be legally protected within juridical
system.”[5] Evaluating
the global scenario, the Social Doctrine of the Church continues,
The
situation of a vast number of the world’s children is far from being
satisfactory, due to the lack of favorable conditions for their integral
development despite the existence of a specific international juridical
instrument for protecting their rights, an instrument that is binding on
practically all members of the international community. These are conditions
connected with the lack of health care, or adequate food supply, little or no
possibility of receiving a minimum of academic formation or inadequate shelter.
Moreover, some serious problems remain unsolved: trafficking in children, child
labor, the phenomenon of “street children”, the use of children in armed
conflicts, child marriage, the use of children for commerce in pornographic
material, also in the use of the modern and sophisticated instruments of social
communication. It is essential to engage in a battle, at the national and
international levels, against the violations of the dignity of boys and girls
caused by sexual exploitation, by those caught up in paedophilia, and by every
kind of violence directed against these most defenseless of human creatures.
These are criminal acts that must be effectively fought with adequate
preventive and penal measures by the determined action of the different
authorities involved.[6]
In our country,
there is a law protecting the children against abuse and exploitation,
specifically those who are in the workplace. Republic Act No. 9231 is enacted for the purpose of eliminating the
worst forms of child labor and affording stronger protection for the working
child. In Section 2 of this Act, it is stated,
It
is hereby declared to be the policy of the State to provide special protection
to children from all forms of abuse, neglect, cruelty, exploitation and
discrimination, and other conditions prejudicial to their development including
child labor and its worst forms; provide sanctions for their commission and
carry out program for prevention and deterrence of and crisis intervention in
situations of child abuse, exploitation and discrimination. The State shall
intervene on behalf of the child when the parent, guardian, teacher or person
having care or custody of the child fails or is unable to protect the child
against abuse, exploitation and discrimination or when such acts against the
child are committed by the said parent, guardian, teacher or person having care
and custody of the same.
There is an
on-going program called Batang Malaya by the Department of Labor and Employment
(DOLE), a campaign which is a part of the Philippine Program Against Child
Labor. Its target is to cut down the number of child laborers in the country by
75 percent by 2015. Child labor as defined by the International Labor
Organization (ILO) is the work that deprives children of their childhood, their
potential and their dignity that is harmful to physical and mental development.
To address this issue, the government must really do something in order to
bring these children to where they truly belong, in their homes or in schools,
and not to the rice fields or factories or even in the streets. Sen. Loren
Legarda, in an interview, called on the government to provide more jobs and
opportunities for the poor. She said the enforcement of RA 9231 should be taken
very seriously by the concerned authorities, but more importantly, the problem
of poverty must also be addressed in order to stop the continuous practice of
many families who send their children off to work.[7]
She recommends the strengthening of job creation, promotion of livelihood
activities, and the provision of basic services to indigent families in order
to put an end to child labor. These are laudable recommendations and the nation
is hoping that they may be implemented.
But on another
note, the major proponent of the RH Bill is attributing the issue of rising
incident of child labor to the failure to enact this Reproductive Health Bill.
In the same news article, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman stated that “the unremitting
pregnancies of Filipino women in the marginalized sectors due to lack of
information and access to reproductive health and family planning services and
supplies largely contribute in the increase in child labor as numerous children
are suffered to work in their tender years to augment family incomes.” It is
not surprising that the issue of child labor would yet be another reason for
the advocate of this very controversial bill to push for its enactment. The
rising population of our country is said to be the reason for our problem on
poverty and parallel to this, poverty is the reason for the increasing number
of children who are forced to work. And we question again their argument. Is
population really the culprit for the contemptible state of our economic
situation? Many discussions have already been undertaken regarding this topic
and both sides had given their own positions. Again, it would come down to the
very heart of the issue which is life. Is it worth sacrificing life
in order to save a nation? This is not something new for this was also the
issue during the Sanhedrin’s persecution of Jesus. (Jn. 12:45-53) Again, a
simple principle can be applied here: One may not do evil so that good may result
from it. The intention of this bill might be beneficial but the object,
which is the deprivation of life, is not in conformity to what we consider as
moral.
Pope Benedict
XVI pointed out in his Encyclical Letter Caritas
in Veritate that “openness to life is
at the center of true development” (28).
We are rational beings, and we must not forget that respect for life which is such an important principle in morality.
We must question ourselves on the role that it plays in nation building and
community development. The Philippines
is a nation that has a great respect for human rights and family values. And we
are among the very few nations that, until now, have not legalized abortion. We
believe in the sanctity of life. Openness to life as an important element for
true development means recognizing the potentialities of the children to become
valuable members of our society. The poor, including the working children, are
not to be considered a burden, but a resource of potential nation builders. And
if many Filipinos are now in deep poverty, population and life must not be
blamed for it. Rather, we must question the troubled system in our country that
seems to legalize injustice. We can never be so numb with the corruption that’s
going on. Ironically, the Philippines
is predominantly a Catholic country, yet for the most part we do not seem to
practice what we believe. Christianity is a religion of love and self-sacrifice
but scandalously, many of our countrymen cannot escape the chains of many
sufferings due to the indifference and selfishness of others. If we can only
practice the Gospel love in truth, we would be able to lessen the misery of
many. As Gustavo Gutierrez said in his book about Fray Bartolome de las Casas,
Not to practice faith is, in a way, worse
than not knowing it. More precisely, not to practice the faith is to be
ignorant of the meaning and demands of the faith. This gives the lie, and
radically, to any pretense to instruct someone in a faith that fails to inspire
the instructor’s own behavior, so that, when all is said and done, the
instructor is actually rejecting it. To exploit the poor is to reject faith in
Jesus Christ.[8]
To exploit the
children and to take away from them their dignity and rights is indeed a
rejection of faith in Christ. It is to deprive them of the many possibilities that
should be theirs. In a way, it is a deprivation of their very life. Is it still
worth quoting our national hero Dr. Jose Rizal when he said that “Ang kabataan ay ang pag-asa ng bayan”
(Our youth are the hope of our nation) when there is only despair in the hearts
of our children? These words are meaningless if hopelessness is taking over the
spirit of our youth. Let us not uphold fatalism. If they can be the hope of our
nation, we must plant in their hearts that hope that will stir them to follow
their aspirations. If we are to see hope in their eyes, we must bring into
their world a better future that they can hope for.
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