Penal execs in hot water

BEIJING — Officials of the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) and Bureau of Jail Management and Penology are in trouble after 1,914 inmates, all convicted of heinous crimes, were granted early release under the retroactive implementation of Republic Act (RA 10592) or the Good Conduct Time Allowance (GCTA) Law.

Former top presidential aide turned lawmaker Sen. Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go said the Office of the President was not informed of the early release of even one prisoner.

“That didn’t pass through the President,” Go said in a text message to the Filipino media delegation that covered President Rodrigo Duterte’s five-day official visit to China.

A provision in RA 10592 excludes recidivists, habitual delinquents, escapees and persons charged with heinous crimes from being covered by the law.

Malacañang earlier said those freed who were convicted of heinous crimes such as rape, murder and drug trafficking must be put back behind bars.

“The President will make answerable those through whom the release papers passed through,” Go said.

Department of Justice (DoJ) Secretary Menardo Guevarra had ordered the temporary halting of the processing of GCTA for further review and “better implementation of the law.”

BuCor chief Nicanor Faeldon is particularly on a tight spot after documents showing he signed the release order of convicted murderer and rapist Antonio Sanchez on the grounds of the GCTA surfaced.

A television report late Friday night revealed a document that supposedly gave the go-signal for Sanchez, a former Calauan, Laguna mayor, to walk free was signed by Faeldon himself.

Faeldon did not issue a reaction to the report.

The document obtained by GMA News showed the release order was for an inmate named Antonio Leyva Sanchez, “who was found to have served 40 years upon retroactive application of RA 10592 and was certified to have no other legal cause to be further detained, shall be released from confinement.”

It was dated 20 August 2019 and the family of the former mayor said they have been informed about the impending release and was supposed to fetch him at the New Bilibid Prison.

But the news did not sit well with the public and the families of the victims, sparking an outrage over Sanchez’s looming freedom and prompting the government to call for a review of the law.

It was earlier reported that Sanchez, who was sentenced to almost 360 years of jail term in the 1993 rape and murder of Eileen Sarmenta and the murder of her friend, Allan Gomez, is one of the thousands of inmates eligible for time reductions to their sentence due to the GCTA.

The law supposedly limits non-life jail terms to a total of 40 years.

The BuCor on Thursday said it has already released close to 2,000 inmates convicted of heinous crimes on the basis of good conduct-based reductions to their prison terms.