Columbans of Mindanao support PREDA's drive for JJ bill
Internet News Network Correspondent report, January 2003
In an area meeting December 3 in Ozamis City, thirteen Columban missionary priests signed a letter of support to the drive by the PREDA Foundation to have the juvenile justice bill long pending in both the Senate and Congress enacted into law as soon as possible. The priests' letter to Senator Francis Pangilinan, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights, calls attention to the plight of many teenagers who are arrested and detained for weeks, even months, without being charged, arraigned or seeing legal counsel. They are held with adult criminals in prisons that lack the basic needs of human life and dignity. They are forced with threats or torture to confess even if they are innocent. The bill is hoped to bring about change in the harsh and cruel way the present system treats children and teenagers.
