Manapla Mayor Manuel Escalante yesterday criticized the Juvenile Justice Law after a businessman in his town was killed by five suspects, one of them a minor.

As president of the mayor's league in Negros Occidental, Escalante said he will raise his denunciation of the Juvenile Justice Law with the other mayors in their next meeting.

Escalante said the 16-year-old who was arrested with Mark Edward Prino, 25, by the Manapla police has a long record of criminal offenses but has remained free due to Republic Act 9344, or the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of 2006.

It is only because the town's Department of Social Welfare and Development is not equipped with appropriate facilities to accommodate him that the suspected minor remains in the custody of the police, Escalante said.

Even at the police station, he said the suspect is free to roam around while the family of murder-hold up victim Jose Lim, alias Boy Sumbing, of Barangay 2, Manapla, grieves for his death.

Lim and his brother-in-law Efren Samodio were on their way home from the public market on the night of Feb. 10 when the suspects waylaid and tried to rob them.

The victims tried to fight back, prompting the suspects to stab them. Lim died of a stab wound while being treated at the Riverside Medical Center in Bacolod City while Samodio survived the stab wound in his stomach, police said.

Escalante said the suspected minor was also implicated in previous robbery cases in the town but was freed for being underage.

Given the leeway of the juvenile law, families of victims such as the Lim's are being deprived of justice, Escalante said.

He added that Lim was a good man who served as a lay minister of the Catholic church in Manapla.*NAB

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