THE Supreme Court has ordered the Bureau of Corrections to release convicted murderer Rolito Go because he completed serving his sentence three years ago.
The high court’s Third Division denied the bureau’s appeal seeking to stop a lower court’s ruling that Go was deemed to have completed his jail term after he was granted a colonist status commuting his life sentence to 30 years.
“Therefore, after crediting his preventive imprisonment of nine months and sixteen days, and the regular Good Conduct Time Allowance and Special Credit Time Allowance granted upon him, Go has completed serving his sentence of 30 years on Aug. 21, 2013,” the high court ruled.
Go, a construction magnate, was convicted for shooting to death De La Salle University graduate Eldon Maguan in a road rage incident in 1991.
The 25-year-old Maguan was driving along Wilson Street in Greenhills, San Juan, when he had a traffic altercation with Go.
In 1993, the San Juan City Regional Trial Court found Go guilty of murder and sentenced him to life in prison or up to 40 years. He started serving his sentence on April 30, 1996, at the New Bilibid Prison.
In 2008 Go, along with 24 other inmates, were given a colonist status, which is given to an inmate who had served his sentence with good conduct for a period equivalent to one fifth of the maximum term of his prison sentence. Such may also be awarded to an inmate whose known character and credit for work while serving time earned an assignment on trust basis for more than one year.
Part of the benefit of one with a colonist status is the automatic reduction of the life sentence to 30 years.
With his commuted sentence, on Jan. 30, 2014 Go pleaded for his release by filing a petition for habeas corpus. He said his original sentence which would expire on Jan. 31, 2022, had expired in August 2013 because of the deduction of proper allowances for good conduct, colonist status and preventive imprisonment.
But the Bureau of Corrections opposed Go’s appeal saying his sentence had not expired and had not been commuted. It insisted that the grant of colonist status to Go did not carry with it the automatic commutation of his sentence because only the President had the power to commute a sentence.
But the lower court granted Gopetition for habeas corpus saying it was clear that once an inmate was granted a colonist status, his life sentence was commuted to 30 years.