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I am 17 years old and I most certainly agree with what Lorelie Limbang of the Children and Youth Organization in Bagong Silang is campaigning for -- an end to the physical and emotional punishment of children. Growing up in Dagat-Dagatan, an urban-poor community, I was exposed to the gravest punishments children experience in their homes, community and workplace. I have witnessed some of the violent acts parents do to their children in the name of discipline and "love." It hurts me to think that our culture permits these acts and pass these on to the next generation by vocally asserting how such violent acts contribute greatly to raising well-disciplined and well-behaved children

Children’s group leads fight against abuse


By Tina Arceo-Dumlao
Inquirer
First Posted 03:27am (Mla time) 11/07/2006

Published on page A1 of the November 7, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

IT WAS SUPPOSED to be the happiest time of the year for 15-year-old Anna Saavedra (not her real name) of Barangay Bagong Silang in Caloocan City.

But that Christmas of 2004 turned out to be her worst.

It was about 8 p.m. and Saavedra said she had just come home after being out with a friend.

Her mother met her by the door and slapped her repeatedly, yanked her by the hair, beat her legs with a broom handle, all the while screaming at her for not asking for permission to be out that late.

Saavedra begged her mother to stop, saying she did ask for permission. Her entreaties fell on deaf ears.

Her mother’s anger eventually subsided, Saavedra’s bruises disappeared, but the episode left permanent welts on her spirit.

“Does she really love me?” Saavedra asked as she cried herself to sleep that night. “If she really loves me, why does she do this to me?”

Recounting the incident to the Inquirer, Saavedra said she kept her hurt feelings to herself, thinking that the physical treatment was just one of the ways parents disciplined their children.

Her world changed

Saavedra’s thinking changed when she joined the Children and Youth Organization (CYO), the first children’s organization in an urban poor community focused on upholding the rights of children.

It was during the training and seminars provided by the Save the Children Sweden in the Philippines that Saavedra first came across the term “children’s rights” and realized that spanking, hitting and other acts of abuse were forms of corporal punishment that should not be tolerated.

Such treatment is painful and demoralizing for children, considering that it is inflicted on them by parents, elder brothers and sisters, and relatives who are supposed to love them, SCS program officer Minerva Cabiles said.

Family violence

Cabiles cited a 1997 Department of Health report from 12 hospitals in Metro Manila which showed that more than half of the 662 admissions were related to family violence. Exactly 1,615 similar cases were reported by regional hospitals.

Little has changed after almost a decade.

A 2005 SCS report, titled “Comparative Research on the Physical and Emotional Punishment of Children in Southeast Asia Pacific,” showed that 82 percent of the children interviewed in the Philippines said they were physically punished, with spanking as the most common method.

Parents main perpetrators

Corporal punishment is defined as an act where an adult uses force to inflict physical and emotional pain or suffering on a child.

This is often done after a perceived act of disrespect for or disobedience to the parents or people in charge of a child’s care.

The Child Protection Unit of the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital noted that the parents were the main perpetrators of physical abuse in cases reported from 1997 to 2000.

Corporal punishment in Asia ranges from the “mild” -- slapping, shoving or spanking -- to the “severe,” which includes scalding, burning, poisoning, stabbing or suffocating.

More harm than good

In the Philippines, corporal punishment is largely limited to spanking.

The SCS is calling for an end to corporal punishment because it does more harm than good to the child, Cabiles said.

Saavedra and the other members of the CYO, headed by Lorelie Limbang, can only agree.

Limbang knows what children go through, having experienced corporal punishment herself, like most Filipinos.

The CYO’s work centers on getting the children and adults together to discuss other ways to instill discipline, those that do not involve corporal punishment.

Children learn better

The group tells parents that discipline is not the same as punishment and that children learn better when they are not punished along the way.

Limbang, who was one of the founding members, dreams of spreading the fight for children’s rights so that children in her barangay (village), considered the biggest in the country with 572,000 residents, will not go through what she has.

Efforts pay off

For her efforts, Limbang was chosen to represent the Philippines during the regional launch of the United Nations Secretary General’s Global Report on Violence Against Children on Oct. 19 in Bangkok.

“We realized that we have all experienced different forms of punishment in our homes, schools and the community, and that we all feel strongly against this,” Limbang said in her presentation. “[The CYO] decided to make this a priority issue starting this year, and to implement a campaign in our community to end the physical and emotional punishment of children.”

Fight will go on

The campaign to help abused children should get a boost with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s declaration of 2006-07 as the Child Abuse Prevention Year yesterday.

But even without it, Limbang, who’s in her second year at the Philippine Normal University, is bent on continuing her campaign while she pursues her degree in Secondary Education, majoring in Chemistry and specializing in Physics.

“I was once asked what I would be 10 years from now, and I say that I will do the same, and that is to fight for children’s rights,” Limbang said.