Is OFW Parenting Also Another Leading Cause To Why Criminal Minors Are Increasing?

There are many factors why children who are becoming criminals are increasing. You can have irresponsible lazy parents or dysfunctional parents. You can have parents who would use their children to beg or steal money so either one parent or worse even both can get a drink and gamble the money. Then I would also use the problem of OFW families. While not all OFW families have criminal children (if they are really OFWs with a plan) but many of them could be leading to this phenomenon of criminal minors? 

Some people say and ask, "What if it's your child that gets arrested?" when it comes to the lowering the age that a person can be charged with criminal offenses. That's a valid concern but here's the question -- how did the parents well parent that child in the first place? There's the problem of children becoming more distant to their parents and a severe lack of guidance because either which parent or even both are abroad. So if you're an OFW then how can you expect to be there in person to guide the child properly? While I don't deny some rich families do have the problem of bratty children (ex. the recent Bullyit incident) yet the poor too end up doing criminal activities to feed themselves!

How could OFW families possibly be a contributor to the rising trend of using minors to do criminal activities for adult criminals? There's such a thing as estranged parenting. It's very easy for criminals in the Philippines to be using minors no thanks to the Pangilinan Law. Absentee parenting can be just as disastrous as two parents who are together but don't do their jobs right. I remembered the film "Anak" starring Vilma Santos-Recto and Claudine Barretto-Santiago acted as mother and daughter. The film featured how the family started to fall apart no thanks of the OFW Phenomenon -- the main character Josie herself was estranged from her own children. Children without proper guidance are bound to be misled by the wrong peers. Where's the parents to say "NO!" when the children go with the worst companions? Worse, criminals today are now taking advantage of the Pangilinan Law to recruit minors with absentee parenting.

The root cause of the OFW phenomenon is also linked to lousy state economic protectionism. Why is North Korea poorer than South Korea? State protectionism! Why is Venezuela unable to pay all its debts? It's also because of state protectionism! Why did China become so poor under Mao Zedong? It was also because of state protectionism. The logic of economic protectionism is supposedly to protect small businesses so they will grow. The reality is that economic protectionism is all about protecting the oligarchy and not the small and medium scale businesses in the Philippines. Limiting the amount of foreign investors can have in the Philippines has only resulted to widening the unemployment gap where you've got too few businesses in the Philippines and too many Filipinos needing jobs!

So how can opening up the Philippine economy to foreign investors be helpful? While I agree that free economies aren't perfect (that's why there are rules to follow) but it can slowly decrease the need to work abroad. There would be more employment opportunities for Filipinos. While it won't 100% solve the problem but it's part of solving the problem!