Short answer. Four, under Section 25: detention separate from adults except where families are accommodated as family units, immediate free legal assistance, immediate notice of the arrest to the parents or guardians, and release on recognizance within twenty-four hours to the DSWD or a responsible member of the community.
What the law says
Release of the child on recognizance within twenty-four (24) hours to the custody of the Department of Social Welfare and Development or any responsible member of the community as determined by the court.
RA 7610, Section 25 — Children Arrested In Conflict. Read the full provision →
What the law says
instead of pronouncing judgment of conviction, the court shall suspend all further proceedings
RA 7610, Section 25 — Children Arrested In Conflict. Read the full provision →
The four rights, and the one with a clock on it
Three of the four are protective in character — separation from adult detainees unless families are held as family units, immediate free legal assistance, and immediate notice to the parents or guardians so the child is not held unknown to his family. The fourth is different, because it ends the detention: Release of the child on recognizance within twenty-four (24) hours to the custody of the Department of Social Welfare and Development or any responsible member of the community as determined by the court. Custody passes to a social agency or a named person, not back into a cell, and the period is fixed in hours.
Even a finding against the child is not a conviction
If the court, after hearing the evidence in the proper proceedings, finds that the child committed the acts charged, it determines the imposable penalty and any civil liability chargeable against him. Then the section diverts: instead of pronouncing judgment of conviction, the court shall suspend all further proceedings and commit the child to the care of the DSWD, a government training institution, a duly-licensed agency or another responsible person, subject to visitation and supervision on such conditions as the court prescribes. A child whose sentence is suspended may appeal from that order in the same manner as appeals in criminal cases.
Who the section is written for
It applies to a child arrested for reasons related to armed conflict, either as combatant, courier, guide or spy — the same four roles Section 22 forbids anyone to put a child into in the first place. That pairing is the moral logic of the statute: having declared that a child may not be recruited, allowed to fight, or used as a guide, courier or spy, it declines to treat the child found in one of those roles as an ordinary accused. The question the section answers is not whether the child did the act, but what may be done with him afterwards.
Check the later juvenile justice law
Section 25 dates from 1992, and children in conflict with the law are now governed generally by Republic Act No. 9344, the juvenile justice legislation, which fixes the age of criminal responsibility and sets out its own scheme for diversion and for the suspension of sentence. Where the two speak to the same question, the later law is the one to work from, and the mechanics of suspension in particular should be checked against it rather than assumed from this text. The four rights listed here, and the twenty-four hour limit, are the parts worth invoking on the day of an arrest.
Related provisions
- RA 7610, Section 22 — Children As Zones Of Peace
- RA 7610, Section 25 — Children Arrested In Conflict
- RA 7610, Section 26 — Monitoring And Reporting