The Board of Pardons and Parole will submit a list of 300 persons deprived of liberty to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for possible grant of executive clemency in time for his birthday on 13 September.
Department of Justice spokesperson Atty. Mico Clavano said the decision of who among the 300 PDLs will be fortunate enough to be granted clemency depends entirely on the discretion of the Office of the President and OES.
"Traditionally, we are used to this in the past administration, we usually do this during Christmas, so every Christmas we have a list of PDLs to be submitted to the Office of the Executive Secretary so they can avail of the executive clemency," Clavano said.
He said the list is being prepared by (Justice) Undersecretary Deo Marco.
"On our part, we will submit the list hopefully by Thursday afternoon or Friday morning to the OP and OES and then it will be up to them already," Clavano said.
"The 300 will still be up for consideration. The final say as whether it will be conditional pardon or absolute pardon will ultimately rely on the decision and consideration of the OP and the OES," Clavano said.
He adeed that the BPP's recommendation for clemency is in line with the DoJ's goal to decongest over-crowded prisons in the country specifically the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City.
Clavano said that talking about decongestion, the 300 will help with the said direction as the congestion rate at the NBP is 330 percent, thus with the 300 release of the PDLs the DoJ hopes to contribute to the decongestion of the NBP.
