A FORK in a road deep in Barangay
Candabong, Argao, Cebu, leads to a special government-run rehabilitation
facility for Children in Conflict with the Law.
But to the facility's clients--the
government frowns on the terms youthful offenders and inmates--the road leads
to hope and the way out of an ugly past.
"Mas maayo pa man dire kay sa laya.
Kung naa ka sa gawas, daghan man mu galgal nimo mag binuang. Maayo pa dire,
bahala'g mingaw, maka escuela pa ka (It is better here. Outside, a lot of
people can influence you to do bad things. Here, you can go to school. Never
mind if you miss home)," said Toper, 12.
"Bisitahan man ko nila dire panagsa.
Dili gyud pirme kay wa may kwarta i-byahe. Mag sinuwatay na lang mi (Sometimes
they visit me. They can't do it always because fare is hard to come by. We
write to each other, though)," he said when asked about his parents.
Toper is small for his age.
The red shirts that the center's
management gave him as uniform when he first arrived didn't fit. And he never
grew into it.
But he has laughed through things that
would scar grownups for life.
Toper, records at the center showed, is
being held, along with two others, for raping a seven-year-old girl three years
ago.
He does not deny having perpetrated the
rape but would rather not talk about it.
He was arrested, charged and, pending the
resolution of the case in court, spent almost a year at the old Cebu Provincial
Detention and Rehabilitation Center where he bore witness to the harsh of
conditions of jail life.
He has the ugly tattoos marking the time spent in the
facility.
He was transferred to the center only last
November when the bureaucratic fog at the Bureau of Jail Management and
Penology and the courts finally lifted.
He is now awaiting judgment. If he is
lucky, his sentence will be suspended and may be allowed to stay in the center
until deemed fit for release and re-integration with his family.
He and Bardot, also 12-years-old, are in
the same boat.
But Bardot is on his way out.
“I heard I have until July before they
send me home. I'll miss this place. I had more friends here than when I was
outside,” Bardot said in Cebuano.
A bureau under the Department of Social
Welfare and Development (DSWD), the Regional Rehabilitation Center for the
Youth is home to over 50 young men ages 18 below.
It opened in 1981.
Each resident has a criminal case pending
before the Regional Trial Court (RTC). The charges vary. There are some held
for heinous offenses such as rape and murder.
The residents stay here until the charges
against them are resolved.
They
are billeted in rooms like the ones in boarding houses, have scheduled
appointments with a counselor and attend class in a two-room elementary school.
The elementary school is attached to the
Argao District 2 Elementary School. It has a total of 40 students. The rest
just sit in.
Last June 16, officials from both DSWD and
the Department of Education (DepEd) were in Argao to inaugurate a single-room
high school that will also double as shop for vocational class.
This school will be operated under DepEd's Alternative Learning
System and will have a "mobile teacher" who will hold class twice a
week.
DSWD director Teodulo Roma Jr. said the
need for a high school class came up last term, when the elementary class
graduated a handful of wards.
Dr. Judiana Correinte said the high school
aims to "provide an alternative means of obtaining an elementary and
secondary certification of learning to Filipinos who are unable to avail of the
formal school system or who have dropped out of school in the elementary and
secondary education."
