Published in LiCAS News
She picked her up, wiped her tears, hugged her, and whispered reassurance that everything would be fine.
Every time Emily Bajdo’s four-year-old grandchild has a meltdown and throws tantrums, she calmly observes and allows the child to release those emotions.
The 52-year-old grandmother was supposed to help organize a child rights forum in a school in Tanay town, in the province of Rizal, approximately 57 kilometers away from the capital, Manila.
Instead, Bajdo stayed at home to comfort Sophia, who was recovering from the flu—a gesture she might not have made for her own young children thirty years ago.
The mother of six grew up enduring physical discipline, subjected to beatings with a whip by her father whenever she made a mistake or disobeyed her parents.
Despite not wanting her children to experience the same fate, she found herself resorting to shouting, pinching, or spanking when they misbehaved or had tantrums.
However, she has since gained a better understanding and changed her approach.
Since 2022, Emily has been attended training sessions on children’s rights and positive parenting organized by the Association for the Rights of Children in Southeast Asia (ARCSEA) in Rizal.
She realized that there could have been other means to discipline her children without resorting to cursing, shouting, and even worse, violence.
“Sometimes I still snap, but now I’m able to control my anger and I am more patient with my grandchildren. I can avoid pinching and spanking them this way,” Emily said.
In the Philippines, child rights advocates and lawmakers have joined forces to push for an end to corporal and humiliating punishment of children both through grassroots education campaigns and a positive parenting law.
“But anyone who is the downfall of one of these little ones who have faith in me would be getter drowned in the depths of the sea with
a great millstone around his neck”Matthew 18:6 (The New Jerusalem Bible)
Violence against children starts at home
In UNICEF’s 2016 national baseline study on violence against children in the Philippines, it was revealed that approximately three out of five children experience physical violence, with more than half of them encountering such incidents at home.
“One in two (54.5%) received corporal punishments in the home such as spanking with a bare hand, rolled paper or small stick, and pulling the hair, pinching or twisting of ears, while a third (30.3%) suffered from more severe forms of abuse such as slapping, kicking, smothering, tying, drowning, burning,” the study stated.
But despite several laws already enacted to protect children including the Child Abuse Law and the Violence against Women and Children (VAWC) Law, reported cases of violence against children seem to be increasing.
In Child Protection Network’s monitoring, around 9,500 cases of violence against children have been reported as of December 3, 2023. This is a 13% increase in reported cases from 2021.
Majority of the cases are sexual and physical abuse that was reported by hospitals which means these are already extreme cases that require hospitalization.
This also means that many cases of violence against children remain unreported.
Child Rights Protection Brigade
For ARCSEA, the prevalence of child abuse and corporal punishment is because of adults and parents’ lack of knowledge of children’s rights and alternatives to traditional methods of disciplining children.
“Many women and children who attended our sessions are not even aware that they were already abused because they do not know their rights nor their children’s rights,” according to Rowena Cruz, ARCSEA’s Rizal coordinator.
Cruz said that they also experienced that at the village level, there are no systems in place on how to deal with cases of maltreatment of children by their parents. So even if concerned citizens will want to report child abuse cases, they don’t know what to do, or where to report, and will think that their efforts will become futile and will only cause a feud among neighbors.
“Many village officials in the communities that we went to have already attended gender and development seminars but it stops there because there are no systematic programs to teach what they learned to their constituents,” she said.
To fill the gap, the group is organizing youth and parents into Child Rights Protection Brigades (CRPB) in Rizal province.
Members of the the CRPB attend at least three sessions that discuss several topics on children including children’s situation, child development, child rights, laws on children’s protection, and positive discipline.
The CRPB members are also tasked to reach out to their local officials, schools, and neighbors to hold discussions on various topics about children and document cases of violence against children.
They have already set up 16 CRPBs in the towns of Jalajala and Tanay.
Improved relationship
For Jennifer Santiago, 33 years old and a mother of three, attending sessions on topics about children has changed her perspective on taking care of her children and improved her relationship with them.
She shared that children can already understand what is going on in their environment and parents need to connect with them to avoid misunderstandings that may result in verbal abuse and physical violence.
“Once, my children told me that they were wondering what happened to me because I changed, they said I became nicer and patient.”Jennifer Santiago told LiCAS News
Now, instead of simply sending them to bed at night, she ensures to have a conversation with them first, discussing their day and understanding their current feelings.
Santiago shared that whenever they did something wrong, she makes sure that her children understand the consequences of their actions so they will not repeat the same mistakes.
She also tries to listen to their opinions if they have arguments.
“Even if [ARCSEA’s] program concludes in our community, I intend to persist in applying what I’ve learned from them to my parenting,” Santiago said.
Wilma Bañaga, Child Protection Consultant of Save the Children Philippines, shares her insights on establishing connections between parents and children as part of promoting positive discipline during a forum on positive parenting at the House of Representatives on November 21, 2023.
Positive parenting bill
Traditional methods of disciplining children are deeply ingrained, not only in Filipino culture but also in many Asian countries.
Wilma Bañaga, Child Protection Consultant at Save the Children Philippines, explained that many Asian parents believe children are their property, implying they can employ any means, including corporal punishment, for discipline.
“Corporal punishment like spanking is not seen as violence against children in Philippine laws and is just considered as a form of discipline unless the results have become extreme,” said Bañaga.
Although Save the Children has been advocating for positive parenting including conducting parenting sessions in communities, Bañaga expressed that child rights advocates can only do so much.
Their programs to promote positive parenting are limited to a particular timeframe and certain areas only and are always subject to the availability of the program’s funding.
For several years, child rights advocates and legislators have been pushing to enact a positive parenting law to end corporal punishment and humiliating treatment of children in all settings by making the promotion of non-violent and positive means to discipline children systematized and accessible.
“We need a social norm change, the law will help push this change because there is a standard that is set. The law will not totally eradicate violence against children, but it will help reduce cases,” added Bañaga.
In the Philippine Congress, several bills have already been filed to legislate a positive parenting law, House Bill (H.B.) 8306 and 1269, and Senate Bill 2036.
According to BHW Party-list Representative Angelica Natasha Co, author of H.B. 8306 and head of the Congress’ Welfare of Children Committee, the two bills filed in the Lower House will be consolidated.
She is hopeful that the bill will be passed soon with the support of fellow lawmakers.
“I believe in mirroring—what the child sees at home, they will mirror it in society. This is what we want to avoid, violence in the future. If there is care and love in the home, definitely this is what they will practice outside of home,” said Rep. Co, relating to why she is advocating for a positive parenting law.
Once the bill will be signed into a law, the government’s social welfare and development and local government units will lead the crafting of a comprehensive plan to promote positive parenting and the prevention, response, and management of cases from the village level.
In 2019, a bill banning corporal punishment was passed by Congress but was vetoed by then President Rodrigo Duterte.
The Swedish model
“We take inspiration in Sweden’s experience in prohibiting corporal punishment, it took some time, generations, before people’s perspective in Sweden changed, but cases of child abuse there eventually lessened,” said Bañaga.
In 1979, Sweden became the first country to prohibit corporal punishment in all settings.
It was explicitly prohibited through an amendment in their Children and Parents Code.
“The major achievements of Sweden’s efforts came when parents stopped seeing smacking as a method of child-rearing and discovered alternative ways to solve conflicts with their children,” according to a 2014 study by Save the Children on the 35th year of Sweden’s abolition of corporal punishment.
According to End Corporal Punishment, as of May 2023, 65 countries have already full prohibition of corporal punishment in all settings, and governments of at least 27 other states have expressed a commitment to enacting full prohibition, including the Philippines.