Justice Secretary Menardo I. Guevarra said yesterday the Department of Justice will officially inform the Supreme Court of the temporary suspension of the processing of the retroactive implementation of the expanded good conduct and time allowances that may benefit thousands of prisoners.
Based on its June 25, 2019 decision, the SC ordered an immediate enforcement of its ruling that the GCTAs under the 2013 Republic Act No. 10592 should be implemented retroactively.
But the SC decision did not order the automatic release of any prisoner. Executive agencies of the government were tasked to compute with reasonable dispatch the GCTAs of qualified prisoners and to release them unless being confined for another lawful cause.
Guevarra said the suspension will be effected until the Bureau of Corrections’ guidelines on GCTAs shall have been reviewed carefully by a DoJ task force that would be constituted.
“We expect the processing to pick up greater speed once the guidelines have been reviewed and firmed up,” he said.
He said the DoJ “will fix a definite period within which to complete the review of the guidelines upon consultation with the BuCor, the Board of Pardons and Parole, and other relevant agencies, to avoid any undue prejudice to the rights of persons deprived of liberty who have validly earned GCTAs.”
At the same time, Guevarra clarified that the DoJ “does not have any conflicting interpretation of the expanded GCTA law.”
He pointed out that “although the BuCor/DoJ made a general statement that thousands of PDLs, including detained former Calauan, Laguna mayor Antonio Sanchez, may benefit from said law, the DoJ came out with only one definitive statement regarding the non-entitlement to GCTAs of heinous crime convicts under the 2013 law.”
On the view of some lawyers that all convicted prisoners, regardless of the crimes they committed, are eligible or qualified to receive the benefits of the expanded GCTA law, Guevarra said: “The DoJ will be glad to have this issue resolved with clarity and finality either by a congressional amendment of its own act or by an interpretation rendered by the Supreme Court in a proper case brought before it.” (Rey Panaligan)
