MANILA — Quezon City Mayor Herbert Bautista on Friday approved an amendment to an ordinance on the Barangay Council for the Protection of Children (BCPC) to include child representatives in the body.
“It is the policy of the city government that the rights of the children for survival, protection, participation, and development of their potentials must be given priority,” Councilor Julienne Alyson Rae Medalla said.
City Ordinance 2671-2018, authored by Medalla, enhances Ordinance 1623-2005, which created the BCPC, by adding child representatives to the members of the council. The BCPC was created in 2005 to protect children from all forms of neglect, abuse, cruelty, exploitation and other conditions prejudicial to their development and to foster education, good health and nutrition, and other services necessary for child and youth welfare.
“The ordinance aims to effectively identify and implement programs and services for children and ensure their sustainability by identifying specific stakeholders that will serve as members of BCPC,” she added.
Under the ordinance, a child representative, aged 10-15 years and member of an accredited children’s organization in the barangay (village), shall serve as the delegate of the children’s sector in the BCPC.
He/she will also convene a children’s association within the barangay to deliberate on and prioritize children’s issues that will be brought to the council for deliberation.
The child representative shall also be tasked to get evidence-based data and information that will substantiate the priority issues of children, and develop a children’s agenda folder for each issue.
He/she shall also seek support from child-focused non-government organizations for more clarification on proposed children agenda that he/she will present to the BCPC for appropriate legislative action.
The ordinance also tasked the barangay council to accredit and recognize the children’s associations and clubs.
Each organization should submit its profile and structure, programs, projects, activities, and accomplishments, and proposed nominee as BCPC child representative of the community.
The child representative of each barangay will be determined through election.
Two delegates from each accredited organization will be able to vote and nominate their representative.
The representative should also be articulate on children’s issues and concerns, as well as balanced in his/her views on gender, religion and ethnicity, and disabilities. (PNA)
