Explaining Violence Against Children in the Philippines: Through the Lens of Subculture and Routine

In my recent field visits to the Philippines, the stories have grown darker, the silences heavier. There’s a particular weight to anecdotes whispered in barangay halls and cramped living rooms—stories of children, often no older than sixteen, being sexually violated. The horror lies not just in the act, but in the proximity of the perpetrators. They are not faceless strangers. They are the ones you trust—grandfathers, uncles, neighbors. They hover close, in homes where walls are thin and privacy is a myth. They strike when the mothers are away at the market, when fathers are laboring at construction sites, when the adults are breaking their backs just to survive another day.

These are not just stories. These are betrayals of the most grotesque kind, defiling the very idea of family and community. And every time one of these cases breaks into the news, we hear the same chorus: they should be shot, hanged, burned. Bring back the death penalty. Lock them up and throw away the key. We rage, as we should.

But rage, while righteous, is not a solution. If police data were to bear out what the stories suggest—that child sexual abuse is on the rise—then we need more than pitchforks. We need to understand. We need to explain. We need to dig where it hurts.

Criminology offers us tools. One is subcultural theory, which points to a darker current flowing beneath the surface of everyday life. In some communities, a child is not a person. A child is a possession. A thing to be disciplined, shaped, corrected, punished—owned. The father rules the house. He provides, he punishes, he protects. But what happens when he is overworked, underpaid, humiliated daily by bosses and customers and systems that chew him up and spit him out? He goes home broken. And in the dark, sweaty confines of a slum alley or a squatters’ shack, he reclaims power the only way he knows how—by lashing out at those more powerless than he is. His children.

This is not just abuse. It is a culture of abuse. A learned behavior, passed down from father to son like an heirloom. A perverse inheritance where dominance is mistaken for love and pain for discipline. In these communities, violence is not shocking. It is expected. It is normalized.

Then there is routine activity theory, which explains crime not through motive alone, but through opportunity. For abuse to happen, three ingredients are needed: a willing offender, a vulnerable victim, and the absence of a capable guardian. In countless Filipino households, all three exist in abundance. Parents, out of necessity, leave early in the morning and return long after dark. They entrust their children to relatives, to neighbors, to anyone willing to keep an eye. But in overcrowded homes where adults and children sleep inches apart, where boundaries are blurred and doors are nonexistent, the guardian is often as dangerous as the stranger. When space is tight, secrets are easily kept. Shame, even more so.

The child ends up outside. On the streets. Unwatched. Vulnerable. And the predators are always watching.

What do we do?

We start by dismantling the culture that excuses this violence. We challenge the idea that children are property. We shift from punitive parenting to protective parenting. We must normalize not control, but care.

The state must step in. Childcare must be a right, not a privilege. Communities must have access to safe spaces where children can play, rest, and grow away from the gaze of predators. Elderly members of the household must have their own places for rest and recreation, so that homes do not become war zones of frustration and unmet needs.

The police must stop counting crimes and start understanding them. They must build a national database on child sexual violence—its frequency, its patterns, its geography. Prosecutors must be trained to build real cases, not just file them. Evidence must be preserved. Witnesses protected. Victims believed. Far too many cases crumble in court not because the abuse didn’t happen, but because the system never learned how to prove it.

And yes, we must deal with the offenders. Not all are monsters. Some are first-time, low-risk individuals who may never offend again with proper intervention. Others are chronic, predatory, and must be kept away. A one-size-fits-all solution does not work. We need assessments. We need classifications. And we need evidence-based programs that address their behavior while safeguarding the community.

The rise of sexual violence against children is not just a criminal issue. It is a societal sickness. It festers in our homes, our silence, our indifference. It is a problem we cannot arrest our way out of.

It will take an entire country to heal what is broken. And it starts not with a scream, but with a listening ear. Not with a clenched fist, but with an open mind.

We rage, yes. But then we must act.