The CRC Coalition Philippines and Social Watch Philippines conducted a Capacity Building on Public Investment for Child Protection Systems particularly on children in conflict with the law and child sexual abuse cases.
Magnolia Escobedo, Secretariat Coordinator of CRC Coalition said that there is a need to reiterate the importance of further equipping civil society organizations (CSOs) with tools and knowledge on budget monitoring and budget advocacy. To facilitate the budget monitoring, CSOs must also be able to identify indicators to determine an LGU’s application of the budgeting principles for children’s rights. The capacity building also included inputs on child protection systems and mechanisms from National Government Agencies and the child rights situational analysis.
“Before, the minimum age of criminal responsibility was over 9 years old and as a result many children as young as 9 years old were being arrested and put to jail even for petty crimes. This made children were vulnerable to all kinds of abuses during arrest and detention, because we had an adult-oriented criminal justice system that did not respond to children’s needs”, said Atty. Tricia Oco, Executive Director of the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Council.
Atty. Oco discussed the LGU Responsibility on implementing RA 9344. Some of these responsibilities include: appointment of a Local Social Welfare Officer for CICL and CAR and provision of 1% of IRA to strengthen LCPC. On the issue of hiring licensed social workers, Atty. Oco mentioned that only 3% of LGUs have an appointed social worker. Moreover, these social workers handle all the other cases of the LGUs that require a social worker and not only for children-related cases.
In the issue of child sexual abuse cases, Dr. Bernie Madrid, Exeuctive Director of Child Protection Network said that the conditions for setting up a women and child protection includes local legislation and Memorandum of Agreement between local government, Philippine National Police, and the Child Protection Network. Aside from this, other conditions include support of the Local government or Department of Health for personnel, physical space and operations budget, as well as the training of personnel.
“In order to build a child protection system, competent professionals should be tapped, these professionals will response with confidence, and understand their roles in the care continuum of services for abused children and their families,” said Dr. Madrid.
A study on the State of Child Protection Systems was conducted by the Council for the Welfare of Children last 2015 to provide an understanding of the child protection systems in the PH in order to develop a national child protection systems framework.
“The approach to child protection was issue-based. However, this kind of mindset makes the identified programs to be reactive and fragmented, as well as it being inefficient, disorganized, and unsustainable. Given such problems with this kind of approach, discourse is now leaning towards a systems approach, which will make child protection more efficient and methodical as it recognizes that various institutions make up the child protection system, with pre-defined functions, run by people who, more or less, have the capacity to address needs of children, and guided by child protection goals,” according to Ruth Marayag, OIC of the Public Affairs and Information Office of the Council for the Welfare of Children.
Alce Quitalig of Social Watch Philippines gave an overview of national budget process and child protection budget in rural and urban settings. Unlike the local budget, it only has 4 phases. As an example, he presented the timeline for the 2018 National Budget which includes budget preparation (January to July 2017), budget legislation (August to December 2017), budget execution (January to December 2018) and budget accountability (January to June 2018).
“The country in lagging behind. Some of the concerns include education, child mortality, gender concerns and those relating to persons with disabilities. The strategy involved research which highlights the importance of having evidence-based proposals; capacity building to let relevant stakeholders understand what is the budget, what are the processes involved with it, and what the relevant laws are; creating a formulative alternative budget is knowing what the existing program and services are before coming up with a proposal,” said Luz Anigan of Social Watch Philippines on Budget Advocacy.
Towards effective budgeting for children, Minerva Cabiles, Child Rights Governance Director of Save the Children Philippines discussed on conducting child rights situational analysis is the first step and happens even before the planning and budgeting process; the budget process at the local level needs proper preparation which should be evidence-based.
After the capacity building a workshop on identifying the gaps and recommendations for enhancing the child protection system was conducted. The organizations present also gave commitments on what are the next steps and ways forward they will be conducting to push forward the advocacy on public investment in child protection systems.
The capacity building is a part of CRC Coalition Philippines and Social Watch Philippines’ ongoing study in the local government units in urban and rural settings.