DOJ: Only Palace can officially suspend rearrest of freed cons

Only the Office of the President can officially suspend the rearrest of released convicts, the Department of Justice said Friday.

"It is only the Office of the President which can put on hold officially the rearrest because the original order came from the president himself," Justice Undersecretary Markk Perete said hours after the Department of Justice (DOJ) requested the police to hold off the rearrests.

Despite the DOJ request, Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles earlier said that as far as he was concerned, the warrantless arrests could be implemented, but added that the police would have to have "pinpoint accuracy" in doing so.

President Rodrigo Duterte had ordered 1,914 convicts of heinous crimes who were released because their sentences were shortened by good conduct time allowances to surrender until September 19 or be labeled as fugitives.

As the deadline approached, the police prepared for manhunt operations based on what remains to be a purely verbal presidential order.

But the surrenderers exceeded the expected number by midnight, and the DOJ assumes even convicts of non-heinous crimes turned themselves in.

As of 5 a.m. on Friday, Perete said 2,009 people have surrendered, the majority of whom are in the New Bilibid Prison's minimum security compound; some are in police custody.

The original 1,914 names were based on a "hastily made" BuCor list that turned out to be riddled with errors. BuCor and DOJ officers have been working to clean the list to guide the police on who to arrest.

"When it became apparent that a cleaned up list would not be feasible by the end of yesterday, we made a request to hold off any rearrest," Perete said at a press briefing.

As of Thursday noon, the BuCor had subtracted the number of surrenderers from the base of 1,914, bringing it down to around 600. Perete said the number is expected to go further down when those who were pardoned or are on parole are removed from the list.

Meanwhile, those who already surrendered despite not being in the original list were told to leave BuCor premises, but Perete said they refused to go without a certification that they will no longer be arrested.

"Pending the issuance of that certification, they insisted that they remain inside the BuCor, which is understandable," he said.

Part of the DOJ's work is providing the necessary papers that would "somehow legally protect" those who surrendered once they go back outside, he said. The DOJ official said the BuCor will provide the certification.

The BuCor is an attached agency of the DOJ.

As things stand, Perete said the government has taken steps to ensure that the rearrests would be "orderly and peaceful."

He said the DOJ is expediting the list cleanup and that law enforcement has "come up with the statement that they will apply all reasonable means to ensure that their operations will be peaceful and will respect the rights of individuals."

"At this point the Department of Justice will also have to appeal to individuals who may be the subject of arrest to cooperate with our authorities to make sure that no untoward incident will happen," he said. —LDF, GMA News