Thirteen-year-old Tony never stood a chance. His frail and pregnant mother thought it was best for him to remain in a jail in a central Philippine city than get beaten up by his drunkard father.
Tony had been in and out of prison since he was 11 years old for various robbery cases. In the squalor of the overcrowded prison, Tony died from a heart ailment induced by substance abuse at the age of 14.
The tragedy of Tony's short life was captured in a 63-minute internationally acclaimed video documentary entitled Bunso (The Youngest), which chronicled the plight of three child prisoners mixed with adult inmates.
While Philippine laws in general state that children should not be imprisoned, a growing cynicism over the innocence of children and lack of funds are making efforts to take the youth out of the country's jails difficult.
Maricelle Virtucio, a project coordinator of the Philippine Jesuit Prisons Service, which works with about 18,000 prisoners at the National Penitentiary, recalled how one judge labeled a 16-year-old boy as "incorrigible" after convicting him of murder.
"It's sad that at these young ages, judges say that these boys will not be able to change anymore," she said at her office at the back of a Catholic church just outside the National Penitentiary.
"These children are doomed," she added. "They cannot change and that is very sad. It's also sad that judges seem to no longer have faith in childhood."
Virtucio, who has worked with prisoners for the past 14 years, swore that a jail is no place for children.
Aside from the miserable conditions in most Philippine jails, she lamented that incarceration almost always wipes out any chance for a better life for minor offenders.
"Our jails are so overcrowded that inmates sleep even in corridors and have to learn to sleep sitting down," she said. "The food is not good, what with a budget of 30 pesos (US$0.53) per day per prisoner."
"The budget for medicine for every prisoner is only 1 peso per day," she added.
But what Virtucio found more disturbing was the behavioral changes of juvenile prisoners due to regular interaction with adult inmates.
She lamented how the youngest inmate in the National Penitentiary has "hardened" after two years of incarceration to become more callous than adult prisoners.
"This boy is 14 years old now," she said. "I saw how he has hardened, and I realized why children should never be put in prison with adult offenders. They become more hardened than the adults."
"It saddens me to see that it's really difficult to mold him now," she added, referring to the 14-year-old. "He would not listen to anyone. He no longer seeks help. He acts as if he is on his own. He has become so hard-headed."
Virtucio conceded, however, that the problem of child prisoners in the National Penitentiary was not as bad compared to the hundreds of city jails and town prisons all over the country.
A video smuggled out of one Manila city jail showed how children detainees became victims of sexual and physical abuse by adult prisoners.
The Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, which manages town and city jails, admitted that there were more than 14,000 youthful offenders in the country, of which more than 2,000 are mixed with adult prisoners.
Bureau chief Arturo Alit conceded that while there is a law prohibiting the detention of youth offenders -- those below 18 years old -- with adult inmates, the social welfare department does not have enough facilities to accommodate them.
Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales said the dilemma stems from a severe lack of funds.
"The problem really is facility and resources," he said. "We are trying to make do of what we have."
As the government struggles to put a lid on its budget deficit that is expected to hit 180 billion pesos (US$3.21 billion) by the end of the year, it was unlikely that funds could flow into building facilities for child prisoners.
Adding to the government's fiscal woes was the fact that two-thirds of its annual budget is automatically allocated to servicing the country's US$75 billion foreign debt.
Gonzales, who was a former member of the House of Representatives, said congressmen who can help fill in the funding shortfall by using their development fund allocations do not usually set aside money for efforts aimed at alleviating the plight of prisoners.
"In many cases I have to admit that they [congressmen] do not think much of those in jail because they do not vote anyway," he said.
Gonzales added that society has also appeared to have given up hope for these child prisoners.
"The problem is that the impression now is that children are already veterans of the ways of evil," he said. "Most of the snatchers, for example, are young kids."
Rey Dean Salvosa, an official of the non-governmental organization which financed the Bunso documentary, has a first-hand experience on the cynicism of some people on child prisoners.
Salvosa recalled that while he was discussing ways to alleviate the plight of child prisoners with some officials from a northern city, one councilor said, "Why help these children? They are criminals, the solution to their problems is a bullet."
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