October is dubbed as National Children’s Month as declared in the Presidential Proclamation 267 of the then President Fidel V. Ramos on September 30, 1993.
Celebrating Children’s Month is a reminder for all child rights advocates and concerned parties that children have rights too, and indeed, children’s rights are human rights. But looking back, even if we have a law that adopts the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Children (UN CRC), like RA 7610 which states that children have rights to be protected from harms and abuses of our society, a lot of work still needs to be done.
So the big question is, are we celebrating or just commemorating Children’s month?
In a nutshell, if we look into our surroundings, if we go to the urban poor communities of Metro Manila, we can see children living in extreme poverty. Filipino families are living in make shift houses, under the bridge or above polluted rivers or canals. Children are wearing rags for clothing, torn, if there are still slippers for their soled and cracked feet.
These children are forced to go to the streets; selling rags, sampaguita (a kind of flower) or cigarettes. They have to face the risk of accidents and illnesses just to help augment their families’ income.
Their parents want them to go to school and live a healthy normal life, but they are jobless. They have been looking for a decent living over a year now. According to IBON Foundation, an independent think-tank, on May 2010, ”The country's unemployment rate has reached its worst nine-year sustained high of joblessness since 1956 at 11.2% counting 4.3 million Filipinos. The employment figure of 35.1 million in 2009 attempts to conceal poor quality of work revealed in these figures: 4.2 million are unpaid family workers, 12.2 million are own account workers while 11.7 million wage and salary workers are without written contracts. Similarly, one out of three jobs are merely part-time work, 6.6 million Filipinos are underemployed (employed but still looking for more work and income) and the number of working children aged 5-17 years old number 2.7 million.”
In the contrary, the newly elected Aquino government is boasting of its DAANG MATUWID or the righteous path. It’s been four (4) months since the National Elections in May 2010 and the situation has not changed. Maybe it has, but not for the better.
If we go farther, if we visit the children in the country sides, their situation is also far from passable living conditions. Children of peasant families have to work and join in the production so they can earn a little more than what the landlords will give them. They have no land, or better yet, the landlord stole their lands. Imagine a shepherd without its sheep.
They are given nine (9) PhP for a week’s work (in the case of farm workers of Hacienda Luisita), they are slaves of no other than one (1) of the richest families in the Philippines, Cojuangco-Aquinos. The struggle has been long and hard.
The President of the country is mum about the issue because his family is involved and so are his interests. He claims that he owns very little of the shares in their corporation.
Adding more insult to the injury, the children in the struggling communities of peasants and Indigenous peoples are displaced, tortured and killed. They are victims of the gruesome anti-insurgency campaign of the government.
Their schools and the whole community are militarized, causing terror to these children. Their young minds and frail bodies have been victims of stress, emotional and physical abuses.
Right now, there are numerous killings on children caused by state armies. This data is according to reports received by the Children’s Rehabilitation Center (CRC), a non-government organization providing psycho-social services to victims of human rights violations. CRC is in partnership with ARCSEA in its Data banking, documentation and psycho-social services, supported by the European Union and the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID).
How far can we get when we are talking about children’s rights and Children’s month celebration?
The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), as the government agency responsible in ensuring the social services for children, has to see the real picture, the social reality, along with its Chief Executive, President Benigno Simeon Cojuangco-Aquino III.
This is a bitter sweet reality, but should not be in the expense of our future generation, our future leaders in nation building, like how they want to see it.
In the coming years, we hope to see healthy and happy children, celebrating with us their special place in our calendar. We should act on changing the inequality in the Philippine society and all over the world. We believe that children have rights, especially the marginalized and the oppressed.
We vow to continue our work, in solidarity with other organizations and groups like us who believe in caring and protecting our children. We vow to assert children’s rights to survival, protection, development and participation in every possible way we can.
For all those children victims of human rights violations; killings, branded as child soldiers, sexual and physical violence and poverty. We are mortified that this society has not given you the proper care and protection that you need. May you finally claim justice that you deserve, in due time.