Recently, based on Romero's written report, Senate President Vicente Sotto III filed Senate Bill No. 2026 on lowering the age of criminal responsibility from twelve to nine years due to the alarming increase in the number of crimes involving minors. The law seeks to amend Republic Act 9344 or the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of 2006, which exempts children 15 years of age or younger from criminal liability. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Below believes that this law will help innocent children to be abused by criminals because the criminal organization takes advantage of the republican law by using minors to commit crimes, there are some serious cases showing that children of fifteen years and younger beat themselves to death, drag an old man out of a public utility vehicle to steal his purse and take the jeepney driver's earnings, become drug syndicate courier runners because they would not be held criminally responsible under the law and will simply be released to society and many of them will end up as repeat offenders. The provision of the bill seeks to amend section 6, 20, 20-A, 20-B and 22 of Republic Act 9344 or the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act as amended so that a minor under the age of 18 years but above 9 years old at the time of commission may be held criminally responsible and subjected to appropriate proceedings unless it can be shown that he acted without judgment, in which case he will be free from criminal liability and subjected to an appropriate intervention programme. If adopted, the bill would provide an intervention program for children who commit crimes. They will be entrusted to a rehabilitation center or childcare institutions. Furthermore, if the crime committed by the minor is punishable by imprisonment of 6 years or less (temporary reclusion), or by reclusion perpetua if punishable by imprisonment of more than 6 years, the bill will penalize minors for the commission of crimes. The above reading highlighted the meaning and purpose of Senate bill no. 2026 or on lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility amending Republic Act 9344. It states that the bill seeks to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility due to criminal acts committed by young offenders. Senator Sotto, who proposed the law, believes it is the best way to stop juvenile delinquency. Stages of human development. Every human being undergoes a process called psychological development. Toledo, defines psychological development as the development of the cognitive, emotional, intellectual and even social abilities of individuals and their work through life expectancy, from childhood to old age. It is also the subject of the discipline known as developmental psychology. Bhutia et. al., mentioned three phases of psychological development, infancy, childhood, adolescence. Infancy is a period between birth and the acquisition of language. This is where the child's development takes place as it is the first stage of human development. Newborns are equipped with an inclination for certain visual examples such as the human face, specific sounds such as the human voice. After a couple of months they can already distinguish the mother through sight. The second is the childhood stage. This stage is known to be the second significant stage in human development. It is usually from one to two years of age until the child reaches adolescence at age 12 or 13. At this stage the child will have to face enormoussteps forward, compensation and use of language. The child expresses his first word by 13-14 months and by 18 he already has a vocabulary of at least 50 words and begins to use three-word conversations. The third and most complex stage is adolescence or also known as puberty stage. Emotionally the point is adolescence which individual understands how to control and direct sex and begins to build his own sexual role and relationship. Similar to this are Jean Piaget's four stages of human development cited by Ansorge. Piaget's developmental stages are part of the theory about the stage of normal intellectual development, from childhood to adulthood. The four stages are as follows: Sensorimotor, from birth to the age of 18-24 months. Preoperative, from early childhood (18 to 24 months) to early childhood (7 years). Concrete operative, age 7-11 years. Formal operational, from adolescence to adulthood. First, the sensorimotor stage. According to Piaget, children at this early stage are only aware of what is right in front of them. They focus on what they see, what they are doing, and physical interactions with their surroundings. The child shakes hands, throws things and puts things in his mouth and learns something through trial and error because he doesn't know how things react yet, he's just experimenting. After the baby begins to crawl, stand and walk, his increased physical mobility leads to greater cognitive development. Second, there is the preoperative phase (toddler or 7 year old). During this stage, the language they use becomes more mature. Young children are capable of thinking symbolically. They also develop memory and imagination, which allows them to understand the difference between the past and the future. But they still fail to grasp more complex concepts, such as cause and effect and comparison. Their ability to think is based on intuition and is not completely logical. Alongside the pre-operative stage there is the concrete operational stage, the elementary or pre-adolescent age (7-11 years). A child at this stage begins to show logical and concrete reasoning. They begin to realize that their thoughts and feelings are unique and cannot be shared with others. They become less self-focused. But at this stage, most children cannot think abstractly or hypothetically. Finally, there is the formal operational phase. It usually occurs at age 11 and older. During this stage children are able to use symbols related to abstract concepts, such as algebra and science. They are now able to develop theories and think about things systematically, including considering possibilities, and can think about abstract relationships and concepts such as justice. Furthermore, in the study conducted by Laycraft, it was discovered that a teenager's mood and characteristics change as their age varies. In early adolescence (10-13 years), children are changeable, have opposing emotions, changing moods, indecision and doubts, and are often influenced by their peers. In the middle adolescent stage (14-16 years), children have a well-developed emotional system but the cognitive system is still developing. Their mental structure is still in a chaotic state. And finally, in the late adolescent stage (18-21 years), the individual can integrate potentially opposing attributes into higher-order abstractions. At this stage the individual can already support and fulfill social responsibility. The readings and literature presented above covered the stages of human development and adolescent psychological development, where the article cited by Bhutia et. al., there are three stages of psychological development from childhood to adulthood. Jean Piaget's psychological development from the stage is also explained step by stepsensorimotor up to the formal operational stage. Furthermore, according to Ansorge, when a child reaches the formal operational stage he is able to decide for himself because he is able to think creatively and critically. On the other hand in Laycraft's study, he points out that a child's development changes over time from early adolescence to late adolescence. Perceptions on Lowering the Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility The current issue on crime, especially for young offenders in the Philippines has led the government to create many ways and solutions to solve this problem. One of these is Senate bill no. 2026, the bill that aims to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 9 years. Furthermore, Senate President Sotto III proposes the bill that lowers the minimum age of criminal responsibility when acting with discernment, like most countries in the world. Senator Sotto stated that: “Even in the time of President Manuel Quezon, nine years was already the age of criminal responsibility when one acts with discernment, is it okay for a 13-year-old to kill or rape someone? Tell the victim's parents." The Duterte administration has vowed to punish and hunt down criminals in its war on drugs campaign. Suddenly, during the ongoing campaign, he noticed that there are many children involved in various drug-related crimes. Drug syndicates have used children as drug traffickers because they are not punishable by law. Due to the rising rate of juvenile delinquents, President Rodrigo Duterte wants the law passed; he underlined that “children must be taught to understand responsibility”. Furthermore, many other politicians who support this amendment justify it by comparing it to other countries that have a low penal age. Several federal states in America operate with the common law age of 7. The United Kingdom and Indonesia prosecute from the age of 8, while states and territories in Australia lower the minimum criminal age to 10. The age of criminal responsibility is the age at which a child is considered to have understood, under the law, that a mistake has been made and can face criminal charges. Some say it's the act and the severity, not the age of the offender. Similarly, in Lumintao and Butalid's study they found that the bill was beneficial to juvenile offenders. Respondents to their study believe it is a vehicle for promoting peace, improving public safety; this could prevent children from committing crimes and prevent children with previous cases of crime from reoffending. And this could alleviate poverty in the country. They also believed that the child in conflict with the law should be incarcerated because he commits criminal actions and it is good for parents to take care of their children and become responsible parents. On the other hand, UNICEF, social workers, psychologists, human rights defenders and other legislators, to name a few, strongly oppose lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility. Senator Risa Hontiveros is one of the few parliamentarians who opposed the reform. He insists that punitive measures are not the best way to keep children away from crime. The senator proposes the correct implementation of the existing law; Juvenile Justice Welfare Act of 2006, which focuses on the rehabilitation and special treatment of juvenile delinquents. Likewise, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian said that since lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility is not the most effective solution to curb crime, the focus should be on rehabilitation. the minor in conflict with the law; the children.