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Revised IRR excludes heinous crime convicts from time allowances — DOJ


The new implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the law that increased time allowances for prisoners now officially exclude persons convicted of heinous crimes from earning the benefit.

After a 10-day review, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra and Interior Secretary Eduardo Año on Monday signed the revised IRR of Republic Act No. 10592, cementing the government position that persons charged with or convicted of crimes like rape and murder should not earn time allowances, including the controversial good conduct time allowance (GCTA).

Recidivists, habitual delinquents, escapees and those charged with heinous crimes are excluded from earning not only GCTAs, but also time allowances for study, teaching and mentoring and loyalty, and credit for preventive imprisonment, Guevarra said.

The IRR also adopts the definition of heinous crimes provided for under Republic Act No. 7659, or the death penalty law, "and refers to Supreme Court declarations on what constitutes heinous crimes," the Justice chief told reporters.

RA 7659 lists the following crimes: treason, piracy, qualified bribery, parricide, murder, infanticide, kidnapping and serious illegal detention, robbery with violence, destructive arson, rape, plunder, some drug-related offenses, and carnapping with rape or homicide.

This developed only after prison authorities, in the last five years, released 1,914 convicts of heinous crimes because their sentences were shortened by GCTAs based on an application of the same law to all convicted prisoners.

President Rodrigo Duterte ordered these released convicts to "surrender" until September 19 or be labeled as fugitives and, according to Guevarra, possibly be subject to warrantless arrests for evasion of sentence.

The law says granted time allowances cannot be revoked, but Guevarra said this rule "will have no effect" on prisoners disqualified from earning them because "such grant is a nullity."

The joint committee that reviewed the IRR was given another 60 days to revise the Bureau of Corrections' manual on GCTAs in accordance with the new IRR.

However, prisoners who are disqualified now but were detained before RA 10592 took effect in 2013 will continue to earn lower time allowances under the Revised Penal Code (RPC), Guevarra said. 

RA 10592 increased time allowances already provided for under the decades-old RPC, but GCTAs precede even the RPC, with a history reaching as far back as 1906, according to the Supreme Court.

Under the RPC, qualified prisoners are entitled to five to 15 days of deductions to their sentence for each month of good behavior, depending on how many years they have been imprisoned -- the "lower" time allowance Guevarra referred to.

RA 10592 increased the deductions to 20 to 30 days for each month.

But a prisoner detained or convicted after the effectivity of RA 10592 "will not earn any allowance," the Justice chief said. — RSJ, GMA News

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