RELEASE LIST
Breaking down the Bureau of Corrections' records of inmates released through the GCTA
By AGATHA GUIDABEN, GMA News Research
With Mary Anne Señir, Brenda Vallarta, and Jam Sisante-Cayco
September 12, 2019
Mismatched names and offenses. Same names, different prison numbers. Conflicting release dates. Janet Lim Napoles. Rolito Go.
The Bureau of Corrections’ list of 2,159 heinous crime convicts who were released following the retroactive application of Republic Act 10592 or the Good Conduct Time Allowance Law has all of these.
GMA News Research sifted through the list, which BuCor officials provided to the Senate, to get a better picture of the persons deprived of liberty who were released and under whose watch they were freed.
The list identifies the persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) who were freed between June 2014 and August 2019. They were convicted of heinous crimes which BuCor identified as rape, illegal drugs, murder, bribery, parricide, kidnapping, arson and "others" which were not specified.
The inmate releases spanned the terms of 10 BuCor director generals and officers in charge, from Franklin Jesus Bucayu under the Aquino administration up to Nicanor Faeldon under the Duterte administration.
There were a total of 445 released inmates from January 2014 to June 30, 2016, under the Aquino administration. A total of 1,714 convicts were freed during the Duterte administration from July 1, 2016 to August 20, 2019.
Fifty-seven names from this list are also on a separate list of 200 convicts who, according to BuCor, were released upon the retroactive application of the GCTA Law.
There are two entries on the BuCor list with the same name but different prison numbers. All other details for these two entries such as the date of release (December 2, 2015), the type of release (expiration of sentence), and crime committed (murder) are the same.
The same observation — same name, different prison numbers — can be said about the separate BuCor list of 200 convicts who benefitted from the retroactive application of RA 10592.
Five names appeared twice on that list but with different prisoner numbers. Fifty-seven names appear on both the list of 2,159 released heinous crime PDLs and the list of 200 convicts who benefitted from the retroactive application of the GCTA law.
However, the prisoner numbers that correspond to these 57 names on one list does not match the prisoner numbers for the same names on the other list.
The name of former Calauan, Laguna Mayor Antonio Sanchez, who was convicted of rape and murder, is not in the BuCor list. Late last month, GMA News was able to obtain a release order for Sanchez dated August 20 signed by Faeldon. During the Senate hearing on September 2, Faeldon admitted signing the release order but noted that he has recalled it.
Sanchez’s rumored impending release stirred up a hornet’s nest, prompting the Senate investigation, the subsequent sacking of Faeldon and President Duterte’s order for the surrender of the heinous crime convicts released under the GCTA Law.
The names of his surviving co-accused in the rape and murder of UP Los Baños students Mary Eileen Sarmenta and Allan Gomez in 1993 were also not on the list. Three of the seven accused died in prison.
But the names of the accused in several celebrated criminal cases in the 1990s were present.
Myrna Diones case
In 1992, five policemen arrested, detained and killed three women, dumping their bodies in Sablan, Benguet. The fourth victim, 14-year-old Myrna Diones, survived the attack that killed her sister, sister-in-law and cousin.
The cops were sentenced to three reclusion perpetua for two murders and one murder with unintentional abortion, as well as frustrated murder.
Four of the accused were on the BuCor list of released heinous crime PDLs: Romeo Artienda Jr., Manuel Corpuz, Amado Merca and Edwin Tubiera. The documents state that all four were released on different dates in 2017.
Agnes Guirindola kidnapping
In 1994, Venancio Roxas and Roberto Gungon wrested control of the car driven by 20-year-old De La Salle student Agnes Guirindola. From Quezon City, they drove for hours with her held at gunpoint in the backseat. Upon reaching Batangas, Roxas shot Guirindola and left her to die; she survived.
Gungon and Roxas were charged and eventually convicted of kidnapping and serious illegal detention with frustrated murder, carnapping, and theft. The BuCor list says Gungon was released on August 13, 2019 because he had completed his sentence while Roxas was freed based on expiration of sentence on July 19, 2019.
Chiong rape-slay
Faeldon confirmed during a recent Senate inquiry that among those who have already been freed were three convicts in the 1997 Chiong rape-slay case, namely: Josman Aznar, Ariel Balansag, and Alberto Caño.
The BuCor list does bear this out, reflecting Aznar, Balansag, and Caño’s release dates as July 24, July 31, and August 10 of this year, respectively, although the memorandum for their release was dated August 16, according to documents Senator Panfilo Lacson showed during the Senate hearing.
Department of Justice Undersecretary Mark Perete separately confirmed to media the release of another Chiong rape-slay convict, James Anthony Uy. The BuCor list indicates that his release date was July 25 of this year. Perete said Uy will surrender along with Aznar. Balansag and Caño had earlier turned themselves in to BuCor.
Aznar, Balansag, Caño, and Uy were among seven men convicted for the kidnapping, rape and killing of sisters Marijoy and Jacqueline Chiong in Cebu in 1997.
BuCor’s documents show that 10 of the convicts named as petitioners in the Supreme Court ruling on the GCTA law were released between December 2016 and August 2019. The GCTA law was signed by President Benigno Aquino III in 2013, the petitions were filed in 2014, and the Supreme Court decision was promulgated just last June.
They are Arsenio Cabanilla, Reynaldo Edago, Federico Eliot (Elliot), Pascua Galladan, Edgardo Manuel, William Montinola, Wilfredo Omeres, Venancio Roxas, John Mark Saracho, and Peter Torida.
Going by the details reflected in BuCor’s list, convict-petitioners Manuel, Edago, Saracho, and Omeres were released before the High Court’s ruling came out.
Montinola’s name appears only in the list of 200 convicts freed through retroactive application of the GCTA law. He is not in the list of 2,159 heinous crime PDLs.
GMA News Research noted that in some cases, the crimes corresponding to the released inmates’ names in the BuCor list do not jive with the actual offenses that led to their incarceration.
For instance, Venancio Roxas is listed in the BuCor document as among those convicted of drugs, despite it not being among the string of crimes that he was found guilty of in the Guirindola case.
Chiong rape-slay convict Caño’s crime per the BuCor list was drug-related, not murder. This was also the case in the BuCor list entry for Julius Victor Medalla, one of the five individuals convicted in Dennis Venturina case; instead of murder, he is grouped in the BuCor list under those convicted of drug-related offenses.
On the other hand, the crime attributed to Chinese drug convicts Ching Che, Wu Hing Sum, and Chan Chit Yue and Taiwanese drug convict Chen Tiz Zang in the BuCor list was murder, not drugs.
Upon cross-checking with available court decisions, GMA News Research found at least 16 other similar instances—mostly of convicted rapists and kidnappers who were grouped under different crimes such as murder and drug offenses in the BuCor list.
During the September 2 Senate inquiry, Senator Lacson showed a BuCor document indicating that the release order for Zang was dated April 3, 2019. But in the BuCor list, "Chang, Chen y Tiz" was released on January 7, 2019.
Five individuals convicted in the Dennis Venturina case were released in February 2018, according to the BuCor list. A source at the New Bilibid Prisons said they were actually released in February this year.
GMA News Research also found instances where different release dates were indicated by BuCor for the same names. These occurred in the entries for 54 convicts who were listed in both the BuCor list of released heinous crime PDLs and the other BuCor list of convicts released due to the GCTA law’s retroactive application.
Based on the BuCor list of 2,159 released heinous crime PDLs, the most number of releases were done during Faeldon’s watch: 908 convicts were set free in the 9.5 months that he had been in office. Faeldon was at the helm of the agency from November 19, 2018 until September 4 this year, when he was sacked by President Duterte following the GCTA controversy.
The most number of arson, kidnapping, murder, parricide, and rape convicts were released during Faeldon’s term. But the most number of drug convicts were freed during the leadership of former BuCor Director General Ricardo Rainier Cruz III — 61, or just one more than the 60 drug convicts freed during Faeldon’s term.
Cruz was BuCor chief for a little over a year from June 23, 2015 to July 18, 2016. During his watch, the second most number of heinous crime PDLs were freed—a total of 283.
Among the BuCor chiefs who were in office during the span of heinous crime convict releases, Bucayu’s two-year stint at the bureau is the longest. He headed the agency from March 2013 to June 2015, during the Aquino administration, and oversaw the release of a total of 171 PDLs who were convicted of heinous crimes.
Cruz succeeded him; his term crossed over into the first few weeks of the Duterte administration.
The Duterte administration has so far had three BuCor chiefs and four officers-in-charge, but none of them lasted a year in office.
OIC Rolando Asuncion took over Cruz and held the post for four months until President Duterte appointed Benjamin delos Santos in December 2016. Delos Santos resigned after seven months, during which he oversaw the release of a total of 264 heinous crime PDLS—the third biggest number among BuCor heads.
Delos Santos was succeeded by two OICs: first Rey Raagas, who was designated a few days after delos Santos’s resignation and held the post for two months; followed by Valfrie Tabian, who served as OIC for another couple of months until Duterte appointed former Philippine National Police Chief and now Senator Ronald dela Rosa in April 2018.
Dela Rosa resigned from the post to seek a Senate seat in October 2018. Another OIC, Melvin Ramon Buenafe, briefly held the fort pending Nicanor Faeldon’s formal appointment as BuCor chief in November 2018.
GCTA RELEASES
The BuCor list shows that most of the released heinous crime PDLs were convicted of rape: 939 or 43 percent of the freed PDLs. 40 percent or 874 of the released convicts were convicted of murder, the second highest.
The most number of PDLs convicted of illegal drugs, murder, and rape were released in 2019.
President Aquino signed the GCTA Law on May 29, 2013. The law’s implementing rules and regulations took effect on April 18, 2014.
Based on the BuCor list, the earliest date of release of heinous crime PDLs under the GCTA Law was on June 4, 2014.
A total of 445 heinous crime PDLs were freed over the remaining two years of the Aquino administration from June 2014 to June 2016.
During the first three years of the Duterte administration, from July 2016 to August 2019, a total of 1,714 heinous crime PDLs were released.
1,778 or 82 percent of those released got out because their sentences have expired after factoring in their GCTA.
Also among them were 139 individuals who have been acquitted of the crimes they served time for.
226 of the released heinous crime PDLs were granted parole while 15 were given conditional pardon.
An inmate sent to prison for robbery with rape was the earliest to be freed; he was released on June 4, 2014.
Seven inmates made up the last batch to walk free, per the BuCor list of released heinous crime inmates. Among them are six rapists and a drug convict who were released on August 22, 2019. This count does not include 26 other criminals whose release dates were also August 22, 2019, based on the BuCor list of 200 convicts released in light of the retroactive application of the GCTA law. This other list does not indicate the crimes committed by the released convicts.
As many as 95 convicts were freed in one day — on April 18, 2019.
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