Corporal Punishment in the Philippines

The report provides information on the use of corporal punishment in the Philippines, its effects on children, and why it violates children’s rights. It shows how prevailing beliefs and ideas about childhood and discipline enable the continued use of corporal punishment. In the Philippines, there exists a need to revise existing laws for the full protection of children from violence. Any kind, degree, and frequency of corporal punishment are violence against children and should be redefined culturally and legally as unacceptable and unreasonable. There is still a need to amend laws to specifically prohibit corporal punishment and humiliating and degrading punishment within the family. If the Philippines passes a law that explicitly bans all forms of corporal punishment of children, it will be the first country in Southeast Asia to do so.