Short answer. No. Section 22 provides that public infrastructure such as schools, hospitals and rural health units shall not be utilized for military purposes such as command posts, barracks, detachments, and supply depots. Both lists are examples rather than limits, so other public facilities and other military uses are covered too.
What the law says
Public infrastructure such as schools, hospitals and rural health units shall not be utilized for military purposes such as command posts, barracks, detachments, and supply depots
RA 7610, Section 22 — Children As Zones Of Peace. Read the full provision →
What the law says
Delivery of basic social services such as education, primary health and emergency relief services shall be kept unhampered
RA 7610, Section 22 — Children As Zones Of Peace. Read the full provision →
The prohibition, and how far it stretches
Public infrastructure such as schools, hospitals and rural health units shall not be utilized for military purposes such as command posts, barracks, detachments, and supply depots. The phrase such as appears twice, and it is doing deliberate work in both places. The facilities named are examples of public infrastructure, not an exhaustive list, and the four uses named are examples of military purposes. Quartering troops in a barangay hall, or storing materiel in a day-care centre, is the same conduct the paragraph forbids even though neither is spelled out.
Why a child protection statute says this
The rule sits in the section that declares children Zones of Peace, and it protects two things at once. A school occupied by soldiers stops being a neutral civilian place and becomes something the other side has a reason to fire on, which is the plainest way to make children the object of attack that the same section forbids. It also shuts down the service the building exists to provide, and the preceding paragraph requires that Delivery of basic social services such as education, primary health and emergency relief services shall be kept unhampered. Occupying a rural health unit breaches both at once.
The companion protections
The same list of policies protects the people who keep those services running. The safety and protection of those who provide services, including those involved in fact-finding missions from both government and non-government institutions, is to be ensured, and they are not to be subjected to undue harassment in the performance of their work. It also requires that all appropriate steps be taken to facilitate the reunion of families temporarily separated due to armed conflict. Taken together, the paragraphs describe a civilian space that a conflict is meant to leave functioning rather than a set of buildings to be shared.
What the section gives you, and what it does not
This is declared State policy binding the State and all other sectors concerned, and the paragraph carries no penalty inside itself — so it is a standard to invoke with the agencies and the courts rather than a charge to file on its own. Two things help. Republic Act No. 11188 of 2019 is the dedicated statute on children in situations of armed conflict and should be consulted alongside this section. And under Section 26 the barangay chairman must report the names of children in the affected barangay to the municipal social welfare and development officer within twenty-four hours, which is often the first official record that anything happened.
Related provisions
- RA 7610, Section 22 — Children As Zones Of Peace
- RA 7610, Section 24 — Family Life And Shelter
- RA 7610, Section 26 — Monitoring And Reporting