Gov’t welcomes any challenge to position on GCTA law —Guevarra

The government will welcome any legal challenge to the its legal position on the law empowering prison authorities to award good conduct credits to prisoners, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said Tuesday.

Guevarra said the government's position will be reflected in the new Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act No. 10592, which is currently being reviewed by a committee convened by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of the Interior and Local Government.

Malacañang and the DOJ claimed the law excludes convicts of heinous crimes from being granted good conduct time allowances (GCTA) — but already after the Bureau of Corrections released 1,914 such inmates by applying the law to all convicted prisoners in the last five years.

"But the government will welcome any challenge by an interested party in a court of law, so that a definitive and final interpretation of RA 10592 could be promulgated for everyone's guidance," the Justice chief said in a message to reporters.

President Rodrigo Duterte has even ordered the 1,914 freed prisoners to surrender within 15 days or be declared as fugitives, reportedly on the basis of two past SC rulings that ordered the rearrest of released inmates because their GCTAs were granted by the wrong authorities. 

Duterte has earlier said the law can be interpreted in "many" ways. Guevarra himself previously expressed openness to either an amendment of the law by Congress or an interpretation by the SC. Chief Justice Lucas Bersamin has also said aggrieved parties may come to the Court.

Enacted in 2013, RA 10592 amends a number of provisions of the much older Revised Penal Code on time allowances for prisoners and credit for preventive imprisonment. One of those allowances is the GCTA, which reduces the time a prisoner serves his or her sentence for complying with jail or prison rules.

Though the SC decided a case regarding RA 10592 last June, the en banc merely made the law retroactive and did not touch on its now-contentious provisions.

RA 10592 rose to prominence after it was reported that one of its potential beneficiaries was Antonio Sanchez, a former mayor convicted of rape and murder. His reportedly impending release has since been halted.

Convicts of other known cases, such as the 1997 Chiong sisters rape-slay case, have also been freed on abbreviated sentences due to GCTAs. Some of the convicts in the Chiong case have surrendered and some will reportedly turn themselves in. — MDM, GMA News