BuCor chiefs who freed heinous crime cons on GCTAs ‘quite likely’ liable —Guevarra

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra on Wednesday said the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) chiefs who allowed the early release of nearly 2,000 convicts of heinous crimes in the last five years are "quite likely" liable for administrative offenses.

"Administratively, I would say that quite likely. Administratively," he told CNN Philippines. However, he said he could not make a judgment on whether or not the BuCor director generals from 2014 to 2019 deliberately violated the law.

The BuCor released 1,914 convicts of heinous crimes whose sentences were shortened by good conduct time allowances (GCTA), or deductions to prison terms in exchange for compliance with prison rules, because the agency used to apply the law, Republic Act No. 10592, to all convicted prisoners.

The government has now revised the implementing rules of RA 10592 to exclude those charged with heinous crimes from earning any kind of time allowance. Those who were already released were given until Thursday, September 19, to surrender.

On Wednesday, Guevarra said the state is not bound by the mistakes of its agents, in this case the BuCor. Asked if this was, instead, a "mistake" of dismissed BuCor chief Nicanor Faeldon, the Justice chief said: "Well, not only he but all those BuCor chiefs who interpreted the law that way."

Seven men headed the BuCor between 2014 and 2019, including Ronald dela Rosa, who is now one of the senators looking into the GCTA controversy.

The number of heinous crime convicts who were released increased yearly in those five years, reaching 816 in 2019, the year the Supreme Court decided RA 10592 should cover even prisoners who were incarcerated before the law was enacted in 2013.

Asked if these chiefs broke the law, Guevarra said: "Not in the sense that they willfully broke the law, as far as I'm concerned, maybe they did it because that's how they understood how the law should be applied. Nonetheless, it's not, from my point of view, the proper way to do it."

"So I can't really make a judgment as to whether they violated the law because they proceeded from an understanding that even these PDLs (persons deprived of liberty) are included," he said.

But in a subsequent message to reporters, Guevarra, when asked for clarification, said he could not categorically answer if Dela Rosa is also likely liable, "because the factual millieu and justification for their acts may not necessarily be the same."—LDF, GMA News