A consolidated child protection system

A lot of us have experienced the frustrating nature of red tape. In our dealings with large organizations such as the government, it is quite irritating when one is being passed from employee to employee, department to department, each one asserting that your concern is within the jurisdiction of some other department. The government has done much to avoid this situation and is continually working at eliminating red tape.

Focus and agility are the hallmarks of efficiency, and with that being the case, it is easy to see how sometimes the government can become its own worst enemy. Many organs and functions of government are created as a reaction to newly perceived needs, or new aspects of old needs, and this can and has resulted in overlapping functions, departmental confusion and administrative delay.

There are times when this level of redundancy and scale can be beneficial, but when we are dealing with urgent matters or issues of life and death, speed and efficiency become paramount concerns. And there are few issues that are more pressing than those concerning the protection of our children.

And our children desperately need protection. Based on the most recently available data that we have access to – from reports such as the “National Baseline Survey of 2015,” the “Disrupting Harm in the Philippines” study from UNICEF and the “Sixth Report of the UN Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict in the Philippines” – it is clear that many Filipino children are in urgent need of help:

• Eight out of ten children surveyed had been exposed to some form of violence.

• An estimated two million Filipino children in general had been subjected to at least one form of harm or abuse, either online or at home, during the span of a year.

• A majority of children do not know where to get help or from whom to request assistance if they have been subjected to sexual harassment or abuse.

• Things are even more dire for vulnerable children such as those in conflict situations, where they are subjected to recruitment as child-soldiers, abuse, abduction and attacks on schools and hospitals.

While recent years have seen the passage of several essential measures for the