An observance of the effectiveness of

the Anti-child endangerment ordinance

no. 8243 in District 1, Manila

Yeddah Marie B. Buenviaje

PS-32

Outline:
I. Introduction
II. What is Anti-child endangerment ordinance?
A. What are the penalties?
B. Definition of abandoned children
C. Definition of children who are neglected
D. Possible causes of child abandonment
1. Lack of education
2. Unemployment
3. Poverty
III. Why do we need this ordinance?
A. Parents
B. Children
IV. Conclusion

Introduction:
Parents, dont be hard on your children. If you are, they might give up. (Colossians
3:21)
Parents are the ones who would do anything to protect us from any sort of harm, they will do
anything to keep us from getting hurt, and they will do everything to be able to heal our pain
and help us get through life. So what will happen if the same people we expect to care about us
most doesnt care about us at all? What will happen if the same people we thought would love
and cherish us turns us to be the people who will abandon and disregard us? We will be lost, we
will be unsafe, and we will be exposed to all sorts of danger and hazards.
Every child has the right to a wholesome family life that will provide him with love,
care and understanding, guidance and counselling, and moral and material security.
(Art. 3 Sec. 2 of the Presidential Decree no. 603)
Being caught to different kinds of dangerous circumstances is what happens to the children
who were abandoned by their own parents. But this shouldnt be happening because every
child should be in a safe and loving home with a responsible family. The typical loving care
that parents give to their children is a hundred times more effective in nurturing them. We need
them because we inherit meanings about social identity groups from our families and we accept
those meanings as our own.
By category, more than one-half of abused children served by the DSWD have either
been abandoned or neglected, comprising the most common cases (53.7% in 2009 and
52.9 % in 2010). (Virola, 2011)
This ordinance will help enforce the right of these children further and make sure that they are
getting all the love and care that they rightfully deserve.

Background of the study:

Ordinance No. 8243 or the Anti-Child Endangerment ordinance, signed into law by
Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim on Sept. 2, penalizes the parents and guardians of
abandoned youth. The ordinance seeks to impose a monetary fine or jail time for any
person who abandons or exposes a minor, or allows said minor, to be abandoned and
exposed to a threatening situation that endangers his life, health or well-being. (Gamil,
2011)
This ordinance seeks to protect minors from reckless and irresponsible people that should have
been guarding them from predatory and harmful situations. Many children nowadays are being
abandoned by their own family. I believe that this is just one of the many reasons why children
are caught doing heinous crimes. They are left alone and unsupervised, this results to children
thinking that what theyre doing is okay because no one is telling them otherwise. Minors
being left unwatched may also result child abuse because of them being vulnerable for
criminals to be able to just violate their rights.
A fine of P5,000 or six months jail time await parents or guardians of abandoned
minors aged 12 and below; P3,000 or three months imprisonment for guardians of
minors aged 13 and 14; and P2,000 or a months incarceration if the minor is 15 to 17
years old. (Gamil, 2011)
Being a parent is a wonderful blessing but it comes with responsibilities that parents should
know before they have a child.
The undisciplined person, whether adult or child, is not only unsocialized, but
unfulfilled. (Saxton, 1986)

When a child does something wrong we make sure to make them aware of it, for them not to
do it again. I think that this should apply to adults as well. How do we know whats right and
wrong? By following a certain set of rules.
Definition of abandoned children
(3) Abandoned Child refers to a child who has no proper parental care or guardianship,
or whose parent(s) have deserted him/her for a period of at least three (3) continuous
months, which includes a founding.
An incident happened in November 2011; where there was a six year old girl chained and
abandoned in their home on a bedpost along with her 8 month old sister on the bed by their
own family. Initial thought was that her parents were the ones to be blames but when they were
asked they were told that the parents left their daughter in the care of their 14 year old son.
According to the news, the girls had been abandoned chained for six months. Although after
further search, barangay officials were told that the girls were always chained up every time the
father leaves. This is a terrible real life incident of children being abandoned.
Definition of children who are neglected
(4) Neglected Child refers to a child whose basic needs have been deliberately
unattended or inadequately attended within a period of three (3) continuous months.
(Sec. 2 Republic Act No. 9523)
Neglected children are those who werent abandoned by their parents but their nutritional and
basic needs arent met. These children are the ones who are basically just ignored by their
parents because of they lack financially to support all of the needs that a child has to be able to
survive on a daily basis. Neglect is different from abandonment; their parents are just incapable
of support.

Possible causes of child abandonment:

Lack of education
This may lead to a lot people who lack the knowledge on how to care for children. These
people turn out to be the ones that are more irresponsible because they are unaware of the
effects of their actions. They are the ones that dont know how to take care of a child properly
causing them to be more thoughtless and immoral. This makes them unaware that what theyre
doing is wrong, that abandoning you child is wrong. Theyre the ones who dont know that
having a child isnt just that. Having a child means having the big responsibility of being a
parent.
Of all the roles that people play in real life, to be a parent is probably the most
overwhelming responsibility to embark on. (Ronald G. Jayme, 1986)
Unemployment
Lack of education also leads to unemployment, which is one of the causes of child
abandonment. This is because people that are unemployed who does have a family and a child,
do not have the right financial amount to support their family. Without any source of income,
they cannot provide for the needs of their family. Thinking that not having a job means no
money, they believe that they dont have any other choices and as a result they will tend to be
more careless about their needs.
Poverty
Unemployment is one of the root causes of poverty. This means that poverty may also be one
of the reasons why people abandon children. The reason for this is because they dont have the
money for food, shelter and clothing that their children needs. People abandon their children

because it they cant provide for their own survival, surely they wont be able to provide for
another person.
Which is why I think that this ordinance will do good for a lot of children, not only will the
number of children abandoned lessen but this will also help in protecting the rights of these
children. Abandoning and endangering them proceed to a lot of childrens right violation and
child abuse.
Why do we need this ordinance?
We need this ordinance because we need help in protecting the rights of the children of today.
We just cant rely on imprisonment of children to be able to reduce the number of crimes acted
by them. With this ordinance we can help reduce the crime problem by preventing it before it
happens. These children will not be criminals if they were disciplined while they are still
young, growing and learning. This ordinance was created when child abandonment became
way more horrifying than just leaving the child alone, incidents like the one stated earlier about
a girl chained on a bedpost and then abandoned is not something than we can just overlook.
Child abandonment needs some attention before it gets worst, before more children suffer and
before more children turns into one of those who are endangered in the streets. We need this
ordinance because we dont want the rate of children being abandoned to increase anymore; we
want it to decreased, to be reduced.
Conclusion
I believe that anti-child endangerment ordinance is important because children arent aware of
the abuses that are being done to them. I am doing this research in hopes to find out that this
ordinance in enforced and not ignored for the good welfare of the children. At the end of my
research, I expect to understand more about this ordinance being carried out.

References:

Saxton, Lloyd. 1986. The individual, marriage, and the family. Belmont, California:

Wadsworth.
Araneta, Sandy. 2011. Girl chained to bedpost rescued. Philippine Star. 13 November 2011.
Compton, Beulah R. 1980. Introduction to social welfare and social work. Homewood, Illinois:

The Dorsey Press.

Davis, Kingsley. 1964. Isolated children. In The Family: Its Structure and Function. Rose

Laub Caser. New York, NY: St. Martins Press.

Allen, Brenda J. 2010. Difference Matters: Communicating Social Identity. In Taking sides.

Bret Slife. New York, NY: Mcgraw-Hill.

Virola, Romulo A. 2011. Abused children!
http://www.nscb.gov.ph/headlines/StatsSpeak/2011/101011_rav.as (October 10, 2011)
Gamil, J. 2011. Manila passes anti-child abandonment law
http://www.senate.gov.ph/press_release/2010/0918_cayetano1.asp/ (September 20, 2011)
Rodriguez, Fritzie. 2014. A village for abandoned and neglected children
http://www.rappler.com/move-ph/issues/hunger/61306-sos-village-abandoned-neglectedchildren (June 23, 2014)