A Department of Justice oversight committee is finalizing the list of convicts prematurely released on account of Good Conduct Time Allowance Law but failed to turn themselves in to authorities before the ultimatum issued by President Rodrigo Duterte for submission to the Philippine National Police to carry out their arrest starting Oct. 1.
Justice Undersecretary Markk Perete on Sunday said the oversight panel vowed to meet the Monday deadline and submit the list of names of convicts to be subject of manhunt by the PNP.
Perete said the members of their oversight committee would meet on Sunday to finish cleaning up the list of prematurely released persons deprived of liberty and submit on time to the Department of the Interior and Local Government.
“The Oversight Committee will meet today to further deliberate on the list of PDLs for rearrest to be transmitted to the DILG tomorrow [Monday],” he said in a text message.
The final list will contain the names of PDLs, who were convicted of heinous crimes and were prematurely released because of GCTA, but did not comply with President Duterte’s directive for them to surrender.
Last Sept. 26, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said they would turnover to the DILG a cleaned up list of these PDLs by Sept. 30, as basis for the PNP and the military to start hunting them down and re-arrest them.
The original date for the start of the rearrest of the PDLs was last Sept. 19 but Guevarra asked that the PNP and military operation be suspended until after the DOJ comes up with a cleaned list of PDLs who did not surrender to authorities.
Among the errors spotted the BuCor’s list were the some 40 former non-GCTA surrenderers such as those who were already pardoned/executive clemency, paroled or acquitted in court. Also, the turnout of the total number of surrenderers exceeded the 1,914 target convicts in the original list.
On the other hand, the Joint Task Force is reviewing the prison records of those who surrendered but were not in the 1,914 list because they were not prematurely released as a result of the GCTA.
Since Thursday, the Joint Task Force has been scrutinizing the prison records of these non-GCTA surrenderers to determine who are those qualified to be released.
Perete revealed that “a fourth batch of additional 27 PDL-surrenders is recommended for release by the Joint Task Force.”
“Once approved by the Oversight Committee, this will bring the number of surrenderers for release to 114,” he said.