The local police have designated the Police Community Precinct 6 in Barangay Addition Hills as the detention center for juvenile suspects.

Juvenile suspects used to be brought to the police headquarters and detained with adults.

Under the new setup, minors will still have to be brought to the headquarters for the required paper work, but later transferred to the separate detention cell, Mandaluyong City Police chief Senior Superintendent Ericson Velasquez said.

The detention cell is far more spacious than the cell at the headquarters, precinct commander Senior Inspector Tomas Arcallana said.

Currently, two child offenders are being held at the Addition Hills detention center. They were transferred from the headquarters last week.

30 sq. m. cell

The more than 30-sq.-m. detention cell can accommodate up to 20 suspects, a desk officer said.

It is equipped with a wall fan and a toilet with running water. The children are also given mattresses and mats.

But the problem is food, a patrol officer said.

"The precinct does not have a budget for their food. We (policemen) just share whatever we have with them. Their relatives also bring them food sometimes," the patrol officer said.

The children should have been under the custody of the local social welfare and development office.

With no facility for juvenile suspects, the office hands over young suspects to the police.

"We will have a bigger problem if more minor offenders are arrested," the patrol officer said.

Arcallana said he would request for three additional policemen to guard the detention cell.

Lucky few

But children in conflict with the law in Mandaluyong are only a few of the lucky ones, along with youth detainees in Caloocan City.

Largely because the government cannot afford other options, most of the thousands of juveniles detained each year must fend for themselves in overcrowded jails among grown men charged with murder, rape and other violent crimes.

For many, their families do not have the money that can help speed up a notoriously slow and overloaded justice system.

"They should not be here. It is the court who orders them to stay," said Alejandro Almacen, the warden of Caloocan City Jail.

"If they are incarcerated now, it will ruin their future."

Children as young as 9 can be jailed in the Philippines. In Indonesia, criminal liability starts even lower at age 8, while it is 14 in Japan.

"The most difficult part is losing hope," said Christian, a 14-year-old drug suspect, protesting his innocence. "Because of them, I was not able to pursue my studies and I was separated from my family."

Death penalty

After sporadic hearings, he is no closer to knowing his fate on the drug charges. The more serious of the two, selling shabu or methamphetamine hydrochloride, has a mandatory sentence of life in prison or the death penalty.

With a third of the 86 million people in the Philippines living on P56 a day and families commonly having six, seven or eight children, studies by various groups show that poverty, desperation and neglect play large roles in youth crime.

 Juvenile Justice Network-Philippines, which works with young offenders, estimates there were more than 4,000 children in jails and detention centers in September.

 "Most of them were charged with minor crimes such as petty theft, sniffing of glue or solvents, vagrancy and violation of curfew hours," it said in a statement urging faster action on a bill in Congress to set up a separate legal track for minors.

 On death row

 The group says about 240 juveniles are serving sentences in adult penitentiaries, including 18 on death row who cannot prove they are minors because they have no birth certificates.

 By detaining children with adults and sentencing them to capital punishment, the Philippines is breaking not only its own laws but international treaties it has signed.

 Responsibility for young offenders rests with local authorities, but the justice department has started to address the issue by working with several other agencies to determine the exact number of jailed minors and to share resources.

 Since 1990s

 Proposals for a stand-alone system for young offenders, including punishment options such as community service, have been in Congress since the 1990s.