MANILA, Philippines — The reported release of heinous crimes convicts from prison cancels out President Rodrigo Duterte’s war against criminality and corruption.
This was the assertion of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), raising doubts on the Duterte administration’s sincerity and credibility to improve peace and order in the country.
“The revelations that high-profile criminals convicted of heinous crimes were released under questionable circumstances discredit the government’s campaign against crime and corruption,” Bayan Secretary General Renato Reyes Jr. said in a message to reporters on Tuesday.
“That so many persons convicted of heinous crimes were released under the Duterte regime shows the lack of credibility of the war on criminality. The present regime claims it wants to protect the people from crime but criminals are let loose,” he added.
Among Duterte’s campaign promises in 2016 was to rid the country’s streets of crime and illegal drugs. He also pledged to fight corruption in government.
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Last August 29, Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) legal division chief Frederick Anthony Santos disclosed that nearly 2,000 of the 22,049 prisoners freed in accordance with Republic Act No. 10592, which credits inmates’ good conduct time allowance (GCTA) against their respective sentences, were inmates convicted of heinous crimes.
READ: 1,914 heinous crime convicts freed under good conduct law
This information was divulged following the uproar caused by the news that former Calauan Mayor Antonio Sanchez will be released due to GCTA. Sanchez was convicted for the rape-slay of UP Los Baños student Eileen Sarmenta, and murder of her friend, Allan Gomez, in 1993. He was sentenced to seven life terms for this case alone in 1995. He was also found guilty over two other cases of murder, and was sentenced two life terms for those cases. All in all, Sanchez was supposed to spend a total of 360 years behind bars.
READ: Antonio Sanchez, more than 10k other inmates to get out of prison ‘soon’
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Bayan’s Reyes said the BuCor process in releasing convicts appears to have so many “irregularities, lack of transparency, and possible corruption”.
“There is no oversight, no transparency and apparently no safeguards against abuse and corruption. Everything is left to the discretion of the Bucor Director,” he said.
He also said that Duterte should not wait for the result of the hearings to decide whether BuCor chief Nicanor Faeldon and other corrections officials should be sacked, warning that the long wait would only increase public anger.
“There is already sufficient basis for the firing of appointive officials in the Bucor. The aborted release of Sanchez and the release of other convicts convicted of heinous crimes are basis enough to fire officials,” Reyes explained.
“Malacañang’s inaction on this matter will further fuel the people’s outrage over corruption and abuse of authority in government,” he added. /kga