The Department of Justice on Tuesday revealed that 827 of the 2,342 persons deprived of liberty (PDLs), who were convicted of heinous crimes and were earlier ordered by President Rodrigo Duterte to surrender, have already been processed and subsequently released based on the revised implementing rules of the Good Conduct and Time Allowance (GCTA) law.
Justice Assistant Secretary Neal Vincent Bainto said the 2,342 surrenderers were 428 more than the initial list of 1,914 names provided by the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor), and were reportedly released on account of their good conduct and time allowances.
“For the PDL surrenderers, the total number of those who surrendered based on the verbal directive of the President is at 2,352,” Bainto said.
“Of that number, the DOJ assisting the BuCor confirmed the release of 463 PDLs. BuCor, based on their own assessment released 364 (PDLs). So, in total, 827 have been actually released from the 2,352 who surrendered,” Bainto added.
Bainto admitted he could not confirm if the remaining 1,525 PDLs were unqualified to benefit from the GCTA.
“Actually the process is still ongoing. But we think that probably a good number of the remaining surrenderers will be reincarcerated,” he stressed.
The 827 PDLs were released in tranches during the last few months. “This is a continuing process. They would be released in batches,” Bainto pointed out.
The BuCor earlier admitted that 1,914 PDLs convicted of heinous crimes were released through the GCTA since year 2014 until this year.
Last Sept. 4, President Duterte gave 15 days for the PDLs to turn themselves in and present themselves before the BuCor, which would re-compute their GCTAs.
The implementation of Republic Act 10592, or the expanded application of GCTA, became controversial after former Calauan Laguna Mayor Antonio Sanchez, who was convicted of murder, was about to be released on account of his GCTA.
