The Department of Justice will investigate Bureau of Corrections officials over allegations that good conduct time allowance is being sold to convicts who want to be freed early.
Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said yesterday he believes such anomalies happen inside the BuCor but noted that an investigation will come only after the Senate has concluded its own legislative inquiry.
“It’s still in the Senate. So, further investigation is being done to validate the existence of the so-called ‘GCTA for sale.’ I do not have the facts before me but I tend to believe that is a very real possibility,” he said.
“(D)efinitely. That (GCTA irregularities) will be part of the investigation because after we have completed the guidelines or even before that, I intend to conduct an inquiry into what’s going on at the BuCor in connection with the GCTA allowances,” Guevarra said.
The DoJ, he said, will screen names and whoever is designated as officer-in-charge should be able to handle the present crisis at the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City.
Guevarra added that the OIC might come from within the BuCor but said a more permanent appointee might be an outsider.
“I hope when the President makes his permanent appointment, he will choose someone from the outside. Fresh blood will be infused to the BuCor. But for purposes of designating an OIC, it’s got to be competent from the inside para alam na niya what’s going on. Mahirap ‘yung OIC mangangapa at this very critical stage. We need somebody who is very knowledgeable,” he said.
In a Senate hearing late Thursday, Yolanda Camelon, common-law wife of an inmate at the NBP, disclosed the GCTA for sale scheme allegedly being run by some prison officials.
Camelon, appearing at the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearing on the GCTA law, told senators that some BuCor officials fooled inmates by promising them they would be released early in exchange for a certain amount of money.
She tagged BuCor division chief Ramoncito “Chito” Roque and a subordinate whom she identified as Maribel Bansil.
Camelon said Roque introduced her to Ruperto Traya Jr., his deputy chief, to help facilitate her husband’s early release from prison through the GCTA. Traya was gunned down in front his house in Muntinlupa last August.
She said they paid P50,000 to Roque to ensure that her husband’s release papers would be processed immediately.
Originally, she said, Roque’s group said her husband would be released by February 2019 but the schedule was moved several times until they said he would be released in June. When June came, they said her husband would be released on October.
Because of this, she pressed Roque’s group to return the money they paid. But the group refused to do so.
Camelon said that when she confronted “Ma’am Mabel,” Bansil responded that they should not ask for a refund since Traya did act and tried his best to help them out.
She also said Bansil even boasted that others even paid as much as P300,000 but did not ask for any refund when the processing for the recomputation of their GCTAs failed.
This prompted her to complain, Camelon said, saying she knows other poor and ailing inmates and their families had also been victimized by Roque’s group.
Asked by Sen. Panfilo Lacson if she believes that the GCTA law was abused, Camelon answered in the affirmative.
“Naging paraan siya para makapangulimbat sila ng pera. Pero sa sariling kong opinion, parang nagging ganun,” Camelon told senators. (PNA, Jeffrey Damicog, and Hannah L. Torregoza)