The Bureau of Corrections has asked for two months more to complete the processing of the papers of the remaining 410 former prisoners who were prematurely released on account of the Good Conduct Time Allowance Law but opted to surrender upon orders of President Rodrigo Duterte last year, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said on Wednesday.
Guevarra said that he had already approved the request of BuCor Director General Gerald Bantag to give them until March to process the remaining 410 returnees due to limited resources.
“They said they don’t want to make any mistake again, and DG Bantag is very, very careful,” Guevarra told reporters during the Kapihan sa Manila Bay news forum.
“So I said okay. We’ll give you that grace period that you are requesting on one condition. And the condition is during the interim, while these PDLs [persons deprived of liberty] are waiting for you to process their papers, make sure that they are properly fed, they are properly accommodated, and they are safe,” Guevarra said.
A total of 2,352 CGTA’s released prisoners returned to BuCor’s custody last year to heed President Duterte’s ultimatum for freed heinous crime convicts to surrender and serve the remainder of their sentences. The PDLs were prematurely released due to misapplication of the GCTA Law.
However, BuCor original list of expected surrenderers turned out to contain errors, and many of those who surrendered are apparently qualified for release after all.
In a recent report to Guevarra, the BuCor chief said 410 returning PDLs are staying in a covered court at the New Bilibid Prison and 24 are at the Correctional Institute for Women.
According to Guevarra, he has received a report of one returnee who died in prison, but claimed the cause was a pre-existing ailment and not the repeat detention. He acknowledged that there may be more than one death.
“It’s too bad that the medical facilities at the BuCor are not really sufficient and not adequate. That’s why there are request for outside hospitalization precisely because of lack of facility inside,” the Justice Secretary admitted.
“It’s too bad–this condition has been happening for many, many years, at mayroong mga namamatay do’n simply because of old age or sickness and so on, it’s really too bad that it happens,” he said.
But Guevarra said that he has not received a report showing persons who may have been liable for the returnee’s death.
Nonetheless, the Justice Secretary said that returning PDLs who believe they have “unnecessarily suffered” because of the detention may file a civil case for damages or an administrative case for negligence.
Guevarra noted that those who turned out to be qualified for release voluntarily surrendered, and would not leave until they were given a clearance that they are not covered by Duterte’s order.
“But it takes time, because yung mga individual records or carpeta nila, titingnan muna ng BuCor bago mag-issue ang BuCor ng certification or clearance na hinihingi nila. By their own acts, naipit sila sa loob,” he said.