Department of Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II said on Monday that 27 convicts are set to receive certificate of conditional and commutation pardon today in line with President Rodrigo Duterte’s order granting executive clemency to 127 convicts.
Aguirre said he will distribute the certificates of pardon signed by the President in a simple ceremony to be held early morning today at the New Bilbid Prison in Muntinlupa City.
“This is the first batch; 27 convicts will be given conditional pardon and commutation of pardon. The next batch will be next month and also in May. It will be batch by batch,” Aguirre said in a radio interview.
He added that the agency’s Board of Pardons and Parole would continue to look into recommending more inmates for presidential pardon.
The DoJ secretary also said that he made the recommendations for pardon upon endorsement by the Board of Pardons and Parole after reviewing the eligibility of the inmates on the list.
Earlier, Aguirre said that no high-profile inmates are among the list, adding that most of those who were recommended for pardon are elderly and sick inmates from the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City, the Correctional Institute for Women in Mandaluyong City and other penal colonies operated by the Bureau of Corrections.
He said he could not recall if the list include political prisoners whom the National Democratic Front have asked to be released.
Executive clemency is the power of the President to pardon any prisoner, provided for under Article VII, Section 19 of the Constitution and pertains to reprieve, absolute or conditional pardon with or without parole conditions and commutation of sentence.
Parole, on the other hand, is the conditional release of a prisoner from a correctional institution after he or she has served the minimum of his or her sentence.
The list include 100 inmates recommended for commutation of sentences, 14 for conditional pardon with parole, 18 for conditional pardon without parole and two for absolute pardon.
Last November, President Duterte granted pardon to actor Robin Padilla, who was among those recommended by the BPP for executive clemency.
The actor, whose real name is Robinhood Ferdinand Cariño Padilla, has applied for absolute pardon for his conviction for illegal possession firearms in 1994 when he sentenced with up to 21 years in prison.
He served three years at the NBP in Muntinlupa before being released in April 1997 by then president Fidel Ramos who granted him conditional pardon.
The BPP earlier said that as of November 2015, it has listed 473 inmates seeking executive clemency.
Under the administration of former President Benigno Aquino III, only nine inmates were granted clemency.