Skip to Content
Home

National law and policies on minimum ages – Philippines

 

According to the CRC, laws and policies must be directed to the best interest of the child. This is especially so in provisions that aim to safeguard the child against exploitation or an early end to childhood, i.e. in the instances where children are most vulnerable and at risk. Yet such safeguards are often ignored and different areas of legislation found to clash with each other. What happens if the age for the end of compulsory education is 14 but the minimum age of employment is 12? Or vice versa? What if a girl can be married before school leaving age - will she then return to school? And who ensures schooling in prisons, when in reality education should protect children from incarceration?

 

 

 

 

With 192 parties to it, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is the most widely ratified UN treaty. Each State Party must submit periodic reports to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, which uses this process to monitor State compliance with the treaty. The vast majority of the information on minimum ages presented on these pages is taken directly from such reports (occasionally, if these failed to include relevant information concerning minimum ages, other components of the reporting process - such as the Committee’s Concluding Observations - were consulted). States Parties’ reports constitute self-assessment by governments and are therefore authoritative sources, emanating directly from those empowered to make decisions. Using this type of sources also permits a range of actors to hold governments accountable for the standards which they report under the CRC. The sections of these reports have been reproduced faithfully, and readers are encouraged to make use of the full original text, available here.

 

Individual country reports are often written by diverse parts of the government, and frequently run to more than 100 pages. Moreover, within some states’ legal systems there are various recognised sources of law, which frequently generate conflicting minimum ages. Distilling precise numbers out of such documents is therefore a precarious task. While we would encourage cross-country comparison, we would also stress the danger that those countries with a more honest engagement with the reporting process might come off worse when compared with those which would mis-represent the degree of compliance, whether wilfully or not. For a full explanation of the principles that guided us in our analysis, please visit the introductory pages here.

Sources:

3rd and 4th periodic reports combined: CRC/C/PHL/3-4, 20 March 2009
2nd periodic report: CRC/C/65/Add.31, 5 November 2004
 
Minimum age for the end of compulsory education
From 2nd report
91. The age for compulsory schooling is defined by Department of Education Order 65. Age six is the child’s entry to grade one. Elementary education of six years is completed at eleven years of age. With four years in high school, free education ends, at age fifteen, which is also the minimum age for admission in any undertaking except in employment that endangers the child’ life, safety, health, morals or impair his/her normal development.
 
Minimum age for admission to employment
From 2nd report
281. The following measures were adopted in particular relative to the minimum ages for admission of a child to employment and the conditions of such employment:
(a) RA 7658 - An Act Prohibiting the Employment of Children Below 15 years of Age in Public and Private Undertakings provides exceptional cases when a child below fifteen years of age may be employed, i.e. under sole responsibility of parents and such does not endanger his/her life safety, health, morals, and the child goes to school. The child may be employed in public entertainment when such is essential and when the child agrees and the contract is concluded by the child’s parents and approved by the DOLE. The employer should ensure the protection, health, safety, moral and normal development of the child. The employer should institute measures to prevent the child’s exploitation or discrimination, taking into account the level of remuneration, the duration and arrangement of working time. The employer shall implement a continuing programme of skills acquisition for the child;
(b) Articles 107 – PD 603 stipulates the conditions under which children aged fifteen may be employed; Articles 108 and 109, refer to the duty of the employer to submit report and maintain a register of children employed with data of birth, written consent of employment, educational and medical certificates. Article 110 provides for the support by the employer for the education of an employed domestic helper who is below sixteen years old;
(c) Article 112, PD 603 stipulates close collaboration between employment and management of the condition of employment and management of the condition of employment for working children; Article 113, allows time off without loss or reduction of wages for working children with special talents to enable them to pursue formal studies. Article 114 provides that welfares programmes be undertaken by management for working children. These measures are implemented to prevent economic exploitation of children sixteen to eighteen years of age.
 
Minimum age for marriage
From 2nd report
92. The Family Code provides that contracting marriage shall require parental consent until the age of twenty-one. There is now no difference between girls and boys age of marriage without parental consent.
205. There are traditional practices prejudicial to the child's health for which changes in attitude and practice are to be addressed: […]
(b) Almost all indigenous communities are observed to have practiced “arranged marriages”. The problem with proving this claim, however, is that there is a dearth of documentation of the existence of such practice. Girl children aged nine to ten, who have not attained biological/reproductive maturity (menstruation) are coerced by their parents to get married in consideration of the customary dowry. The establishment of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples is expected to abolish this traditional practice. However, no study has yet been done on the issue […]
 
Minimum age for criminal responsibility
From 3rd and 4th reports combined
13. The Passage in 2006 of Republic Act 9344, “An Act Establishing a Comprehensive Juvenile Justice and Welfare System, Creating the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Council under the Department of Justice, Appropriating Funds Therefor and For Other Purposes” otherwise known as the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act (JJWA) has raised the minimum age of criminal responsibility in the country from nine (9) to fifteen (15) years.
80. […] RA 9344 or the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of 2006 provides under Section 6 that “a child fifteen (15) years of age or under at the time of the commission of the offense shall be exempt from criminal liability. However, the child shall be subjected to an intervention programme pursuant to Section 20 of this Act”. It further provides that “a child above fifteen (15) but below eighteen (18) years of age shall likewise be exempted from criminal liability and be subjected to an intervention programme, unless he/she acted with discernment, in which case, such child shall be subjected to the appropriate proceedings in accordance with this Act”.
 
Sources:
3rd and 4th periodic reports combined: CRC/C/PHL/3-4, 20 March 2009
2nd periodic report: CRC/C/65/Add.31, 5 November 2004