Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla (File photo)
MANILA – Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla on Friday met with officials from concerned groups and government agencies to finetune the official mechanisms in handling cases of incestuous rape and child abuse.
"There’s a mechanism already in place but these mechanisms have to be further defined and most of them are based in local government units when it comes to incestuous rape and child abuse," Remulla said.
Among other things, the justice chief added that local government units must build up their capacity for handling these cases.
"These just have to be properly filled up by the local government units. But anyway, that’s why DILG is here to make sure that they will issue the necessary orders for the monitoring, of all the LGUs, all the cities, municipalities, and provinces, to comply with the requirements of the law when it comes to the way that they’re social. offices are organized," he added.
Present during the meeting were officials of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT) and the Child Protection Network Foundation (CPN).
Remulla added that they are also seeking to clarify guidelines that would prevent such cases from being settled quietly and out of court.
“Ito’y isasangguni namin sa Court Administrator at marahil susulat kami sa Chief Justice upang makaroon ng guidelines ang Korte Suprema sa mga courts natin… na wag ‘pumayag sa aregluhan ng ganitong mga kaso (We would bring up this matter with the Office of the Court Administrator of the Supreme Court and we might probably write to the Chief Justice so that the SC would come up with guidelines for the courts not to allow settlements in these cases)," the DOJ chief said.
He added that putting an end to the practice of entering into a settlement on these cases will ensure that these will not happen again and that perpetrators would pay for their crimes. (PNA)
