MANILA, Philippines — Details, like latest photos, are crawling their way out of Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) records so slowly because of the suspension of now up to 30 of the bureau’s officials over a scandal on good conduct time allowance (GCTA) being sold to pave the way for the early release of select inmates, according to the Philippine National Police (PNP).
Brig Gen. Bernard Banac, PNP spokesperson, said request for details of prisoners who had been released on GCTA computations could not be immediately granted by the BuCor because of the suspensions.
The Office of the Ombudsman had ordered the suspension for six months of at least 30 BuCor officials as the investigation into GCTA anomalies, like allegations that these were being sold, continues at the Senate. The Ombudsman is conducting a separate investigation that can lead to the filing of criminal charges.
READ: Ombudsman suspends 3 more BuCor execs as probe into GCTA mess continues
Banac admitted that the official list of convicts freed as a result of GCTA lacked details like latest photos of the inmates.
“The details are lacking because we want to get all the details, we need the latest photos even as recently as four weeks ago,” Banac said. Police are now tracking down at least 2,000 convicts freed from the New Bilibid Prison under the GCTA scheme.
The release of inmates became controversial after it was learned that among those to be freed was rapist-murderer Antonio Sanchez, who is serving 200 years in jail, a term which would have been cut by 176 years had a scheme to set him free succeeded.
President Rodrigo Duterte, angered by the attempt to free Sanchez, had ordered the released convicts to be hunted as fugitives if they did not return to jail in 15 days.
Banac urged the convicts to surrender to authorities or the PNP’s tracker teams will arrest them after the 15-day deadline for them to yield expires.
He said he wished heinous crimes convicts would just “continue surrendering to lessen the number of fugitives we will track down.”
“If they don’t surrender, the PNP is ready to unleash its tracker teams. This is our mission,” he said.
At least 281 out of 1,914 heinous crimes convicts have surrendered to police stations nationwide./TSB