After 4 years in prison, homicide convict Leviste is a free man anew

(Updated 3:48 p.m.) After serving only four years of his minimum six-year sentence, homicide convict and former Batangas Governor Antonio Leviste is a free man once again.

 

This was after the Board of Pardons and Parole approved his parole application on November 19. After learning about the parole grant, the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) where Leviste was imprisoned completed preparing his discharge papers on Thursday.

 

"The board granted his parole after he served his minimum sentence and in inconsideration of his age, 73," NBP Superintendent Venancio Tesoro told GMA News Online in an interview. He said Leviste was granted parole, along with 30 other prisoner-applicants.

 

The NBP official said Leviste could have gone out of prison on Thursday, but he "begged off, requesting that he be allowed to leave Friday, when his family was available to pick him up." Tesoro said Leviste told him his family might fetch him within the morning.


‘Self-defense’

 

Leviste's criminal case stemmed from a January 12, 2007 shooting incident in Makati City in which the governor shot dead his long-time aide Rafael de las Alas, who at the time was allegedly demanding a pay hike from the governor.

 

The former governor claimed the shooting was only an act of self-defense.

 

Leviste was charged with murder but the court convicted him in January 2009 for the lesser offense of homicide, saying that the shooting to death of De las Alas did not appear to be premeditated.

 

He was punished to serve a minimum sentence of six years and a maximum sentence of 12 years, but it was slashed to just a little under five years after he earned "good conduct time allowance."

 

Tesoro said such allowance is earned when a prisoner "has no derogatory conduct and record based on presumed prison rules and regulations."

 

He was sent behind NBP bars on January 26, 2009, but his penalty commenced only on May 29, 2010 when the Makati court hearing his case handed down the guilty verdict.

 

"Pero ang count ay simula January 2009," Tesoro added.

‘Escape’
 

Leviste re-emerged in the headlines in May 2011 when he was reported to have "escaped" from prison. He was re-arrested, transferred to the maximum security facility, and was slapped with fresh charges of evasion of service of sentence.

 

Leaving NBP grounds was nothing new for Leviste, as then NBP assistant director Teodora Diaz claimed the former Batangas governor had left the NBP compound four times in the past, three of them through the main gate.

 

His May 2011 "escape" prompted officials from the Department of Justice and the National Bureau of Investigation to conduct an investigation at the NBP, especially on so-called "sleeping out" prisoners like Leviste.

 

Because of old age, the then 71-year-old Leviste – soon after his conviction in 2009 – was awarded "sleep out" privileges, which was normally given to inmates 65 years old and above.

 

He also later obtained "living out" status, which means that he is not detained at the maximum security facility but only within the NBP compound in Muntinlupa City. 

 

After his re-arrest, Leviste has since been kept inside the NBP Maximum Security Compound.

 

In their probe, the DOJ and NBI inspected a pair of abandoned bamboo huts or kubol that Leviste allegedly constructed and where he used to stay before his "escape." 

 

The two huts – one served as Leviste's house and the other his office – were sitting on the edge of a lagoon in an area that has no perimeter fence.

 

Originally considered a minimum security and "sleep out" prisoner, Leviste did not only have the privilege to freely roam the NBP compound but he also had the freedom to build his own house on designated areas inside.

 

Authorities said Leviste belongs an elite group of "two to three" inmates who had enough funds to construct their own kubol.

 

The DOJ and NBI eventually discovered security lapses inside the national penitentiary, with two NBP officials and eight non-officers ending up being suspended and probed.

 

During the joint team's ocular inspection, investigators noticed the gates had no closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera installed to monitor the vehicles going in and out of the compound. 

 

There was not even a logbook in one of the three guardhouses near the gates.

 

In early 2010, Leviste was allowed to leave the NBP to undergo a dental check-up in Makati City.

 

Leviste could have spent an additional six years to be added to his sentence had he been found guilty of evasion of service of sentence. However, Tesoro said the Makati court that handled his case eventually cleared him of the new charges.

 

"Kaya hindi nakaapekto sa computation ng penalty ang incident [ng pagtakas niya] dati," said Tesoro, adding that "sleep out" and "living out" privileges had long been removed since Leviste's caper. — with Kimberly Jane Tan/KG/RSJ, GMA News