Law enforcement authorities will resume hunting down on Oct. 1 heinous crimes convicts, released earlier under the Good Conduct Time Allowance Law, who defied the order of President Rodrigo Duterte to surrender, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said Thursday.
Guevarra said he expected the Bureau of Corrections to come up on Sept. 30 with a cleaned up list of heinous crimes convicts who were prematurely released on account of good conduct time allowance but failed to surrender as ordered by the President.
“Our target is by the end of September, although we could not ascertain if we would be able to have a complete list by then, but by Sept. 30 for sure we would already release a list that we could give the Department of the Interior and Local Government [DILG] and the PNP [a copy] so they could start hunting them,” Guevarra told reporters.
According to him, Oct. 1 would definitely be a hunting season for law enforcers to effect the arrest of the GCTA-freed persons deprived of liberties who did not turn themselves in to authorities.
The Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior and Local Government have revised the Implementing Rules and Regulations of the Good Conduct Time Allowance Law, responding to public outcry over the near-release of high-profile convict Antonio Sanchez.
The new IRR of Republic Act 10592 or the GCTA Law now categorically excludes heinous crime convicts like Sanchez from the benefits of the GCTA Law.
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice has survived its recent “major institutional crisis” arising from the controversy on good conduct time allowances awarded to prisoners “almost unscathed” because it did the right way, which is to uphold the rule of law.
“During the past several weeks, the DOJ as an institution could have been damaged severely if not ruined because of what happened,” Guevarra told DOJ officials and employees during a program for the department’s 122nd anniversary.
“However, because we continued to uphold the rule of law, we continued to follow what is right, what is just, and because of you, my co-workers at the department, rallied behind the leadership of the DoJ, the DoJ has survived this major institutional crisis, and as a matter of fact came out almost unscathed,” Guevarra said.
For enduring the month-long institutional crisis, Guevarra urged the department’s personnel to “rejoice” in what he descried as DoJ’s “newfound strength” and “newfound public image.”
“I’d like to say the DoJ has been reborn,” he declared.
The DoJ and its attached agency the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) were at the center of controversy for several weeks due to controversy surrounding the implementation of Republic Act 10592, the expanded GCTA law that may shorten the sentences of prisoners who show good behavior.
The issue started when it was reported last August that convicted rapist and murderer Antonio Sanchez may walk out of prison early because his sentence was shortened by GCTA credits, or deductions to an inmate’s sentence for compliance with prison rules.
The public outrage over the impending release of Sanchez prompted the Duterte administration to clarify that convicts of heinous crimes should be disqualified from GCTA law.
This resulted to the DoJ and the Department of the Interior and Local Government to create a joint committee to revise the Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act No. 10592 to reflect this position that prisoners convicted of heinous crimes are not entitled to GCTA credits.
The Senate also conducted a legislative inquiry into the alleged corruption in the BuCor, and the Office of the Ombudsman suspended 30 BuCor officers for six months.
President Rodrigo Duterte was even prompted to order the 1,914 convicts of heinous crimes who were prematurely released in the last five years due to GCTAs to surrender or be hunted down as fugitives by the authorities.
When the President’s 15-day ultimatum for GCTA-inmates to surrender expired, the number of surrenderers exceeded the expected figure, reaching 2,221 as of Monday.
Guevarra noted that a substantial numbers of prisoners surrendered despite not having been released because of GCTAs.
The DOJ chief stressed that at least 25 surrenderers with non-GCTA cases, such as those who were released on pardon, parole, or executive clemency, are set to be released on Thursday, with more are expected to be released in the coming days after their cases are verified.
The original 1,914 names were in a list provided by the BuCor that turned out to contain several errors and is now being cleaned up by DOJ and BuCor personnel so it may serve as a reliable arrest list for the police.
According to Guevarra, the task force reviewing the BuCor list aims to finish its work by the end of September so the police can resume its suspended manhunt operations for non-surrenderers, now considered fugitives, with a correct basis by October 1.