Short answer. To the child, not to the treasury. Section 31 requires the fine to be administered by the DSWD as a cash fund and disbursed for the rehabilitation of each child victim — or of an immediate family member, where that family member is the one who committed the offence.
What the law says
A fine to be determined by the court shall be imposed and administered as a cash fund by the Department of Social Welfare and Development and disbursed for the rehabilitation of each child victim, or any immediate member of his family if the latter is the perpetrator of the offense.
RA 7610, Section 31 — Common Penal Provisions. Read the full provision →
An earmarked fund, not general revenue
A fine to be determined by the court shall be imposed and administered as a cash fund by the Department of Social Welfare and Development and disbursed for the rehabilitation of each child victim, or any immediate member of his family if the latter is the perpetrator of the offense. Three features of that are unusual. The amount is left entirely to the court rather than fixed by the section. The money is held and administered by a welfare department instead of being paid into the general funds. And it is committed in advance to a purpose — rehabilitation, for each child victim individually.
The clause about the perpetrator
The tail of the sentence surprises people, so it is worth reading slowly. The fund may be disbursed for the rehabilitation of the child victim, or of an immediate member of his family where that family member is the perpetrator. Rehabilitating the offender out of the fine he paid looks strange until you remember what these cases usually are. Where the abuser is a parent or a sibling the child is very often going back into that household, and treating only the child leaves the condition that produced the case untouched. The provision funds both halves of the problem.
A fine is not compensation
Families sometimes read the fine as the money they are owed. It is not: a fine is a penalty payable because an offence was committed, while civil liability is what answers for the harm done to the victim, and the Act treats the two as distinct — Section 25, dealing with children arrested in armed conflict, has the court determine the imposable penalty and any civil liability chargeable as separate exercises. Nothing about the destination of the fine reduces or replaces what may be recovered as civil liability, and neither should be traded away in reliance on the other.
What follows from the amount being open
Because the section fixes no figure and ties the fund to rehabilitation, what the child actually needs is a matter for the court to hear about rather than assume — the cost of counselling, of continued schooling, of a placement away from the household. That is evidence, and it belongs in the record. Afterwards the fund sits with the DSWD, so access to it runs through that department rather than through the court that imposed it. The same section also raises the penalty to its maximum period where the perpetrator is a close relative or a public officer.