Pat Ray M Dagapioso January

22, 2010

Contemporary Issues in Philippine Politics Prof. E.

Macamay-Baulete

A Reaction Paper on the Documentary Film BUNSO

Imagine an innocent child thrown into a pitiful for transgressing the

law. A jail is not your ordinary home where you can find comfort and peace,
it is an abysmal place full of thieves, murderers and rapists. Now let me ask
this, what comes of the future of the children thrown in jail?

That question and more sprung after watching the documentary film
Bunso, which details the situation of juvenile delinquents in Cebu city. It
follows the lives of several children, from the time they spent in jail up to the
day they were set free.

Life in jail. The words that can best describe a jail are unhealthful,
congested, stenched and unfriendly. You may wonder are the jails serving
their real purpose. The spirit of the creation of the jails is to reform the ill-
conceived ways of man to conform to society’s accepted norms, mores, and
ideals. How can you find thieves, murderers, rapists all in one place, hoping
that at the end of their sentences they become Pedros, Marios, and Juans
once again, living a decent and lawful lives again.

The horrible conditions of the Philippine Jail System maybe best

explained by the lack of funding from the government and for because of
rampant corruption that had siphoned the resources that must have been for
jail rehabilitation. But the cause I am advocating here is that are the horrible
conditions of the jails in the Philippines, or in Cebu, the right environment for
a juvenile delinquent to reform his ill-conceived ways?

Reformation speaks of transforming old values into new ones which are
acceptable to the society. The child had transgressed, had stepped beyond
the boundaries of the law, they had misinterpreted and had misled
themselves of the society’s ideals. He had done acts of minimal nature, and
it may have been attributed to so many factors. Poverty, misparenting, lack
of appropriate education, peers, all come together and acted as one and had
affected the child dearly. But seriously is the jail, full of stench, crowded with
criminals, diminished with food, the right place for a child to reform.

No. It is a big no, the film had portrayed that what the child can learn
in jail is inappropriate and unacceptable. Bunso, for example after spending
weeks in jail started talking rubbish after seeing her mom after a long while.
Another child, had received multiple tattoos in his body after spending more
weeks in jail than at school.

Why can’t these children be housed in a reformatory center more

acceptable and that resembles more of a home, with decent food, decent
rest places, with decent sleeping quarters? Remember, these children at
their age are innocent are innocent at best. Their beliefs and their basis of
morality are shaped with what they see and hear from their environment.
People in jail are talking rubbish, smoking, tattooing day in and day out,
fighting, not the usual, normal and appropriate life a hope of motherland
wants to live. This is why I’m calling for the government that what needs to
be done for a healthier reformation for juvenile delinquents is a reformation
center that is more like a house, housed with caring staffs, with clean toilets,
clean bedrooms, and this reformatory center must be for juveniles only.

But after a thorough introspection, a question comes up, had these

children become with what they had became if things had just been at their
right and proper? What has the society done to them to become
delinquents? Has the government failed the children in nourishing them with
education and assistance? Has the parents failed them entirely that they
neglected providing the appropriate lessons, care for their children?

If the parents are able providers of food, shelter, care and education
for their children, probably these children are not in jail. If the government
had just provided a totally free and welfare-based education, probably these
children are not in jail. If the parents had just allowed family planning to
prosper and attend to 2 or 3 children, probably these children are not in jail.

There are many ifs, buts and probables of the situation of juvenile
delinquency. Their problems will still be described in the lexicon of ifs, buts,
and probables, if not acted fast, or if not acted at all by the government,
their families, the Social Welfare Department, and by the civil society acting
as one targeting the issue of juvenile delinquency.

In the end I only wish those children be reformed and hope they will
not stray away from the good side of the law, and hope they will fulfill the
promise that the motherland holds them to be.