‘No legal obstacle’ for release of prisoners correctly granted GCTAs — Guevarra

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra on Monday said there is no legal obstacle to the release of prisoners who are correctly assessed to have fully served a sentence shortened by validly granted good conduct credits.

The Department of Justice temporarily suspended the processing of good conduct time allowances (GCTA) for thousands of prisoners while it reviewed the guidelines for the controversial benefit.

But now that the DOJ and the Department of the Interior and Local Government have revised the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) for Republic Act No. 10592, the law increasing GCTAs, Guevarra said they will enforce it "to whatever extent that we can implement."

The operations manual that will guide the "nitty gritty" of the revised rules will still be under review for the next 60 days.

"We don't see any legal obstacle para doon sa mga properly... nag-accumulate na [ng GCTAs], they are not disqualified under the rules, walang issue about the correctness, validity of the grant of their good conduct time allowance," Guevarra said in a press conference.

He said prisoners with clean records, whose GCTAs are not suspected of having been attended by corruption or are factually challenged, should be able to earn credits.

"And if the time allowance needed for their release has already been obtained, then there should be no reason why they should not be released immediately on account of an expired sentence," the Justice chief said.

The revised IRR of RA 10592 excludes recidivists, habitual delinquents, escapees and persons charged or convicted of heinous crimes from receiving any kind of time allowance that may reduce their sentence.

This formalizes the position the government took following the controversy stirred by the reported impending release of Antonio Sanchez, a former convicted of rape and murder, offenses that are considered heinous crimes under the death penalty law.

The Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) released 1,914 convicts of heinous crimes in the five years after RA 10592 was enacted in 2013, guided by an application of the law to all convicted prisoners, with no exceptions.

President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered these convicts to surrender within 15 days or be declared as fugitives. As of 5 p.m. Monday, 658 of them have returned to BuCor custody, according to bureau spokesman Eusebio del Rosario, Jr. — BM, GMA News