Police eye irate neighbors in shooting, wounding of convict freed through GCTA

CEBU CITY—A murder convict who was released as a result of the now controversial good conduct time allowance (GCTA) had been shot and wounded on Wednesday, Sept. 11, in the town of Dalaguete, Cebu province.

Manuel Amaya Jr., 56, was entering his house at the village of Mantalongan when assailants shot him. He suffered wounds in the foot and arms.

Maj. Rolan Aliser, chief of the Dalaguete police station, said investigators have yet to identify the suspects.

Aliser, however, said personal grudge could be the motive for the attack.

He said Amaya could have angered some of his neighbors because “he has not been good to some of them.”

Aliser said investigators have yet to talk with Abaya. But he quoted neighbors as saying the freed convict had incurred the ire of some people in the community since he returned to the place.

Amaya, a farmer, had been convicted of murder and frustrated murder in 1993 and had been imprisoned at the Sablayan Prison and Penal Farm in Occidental Mindoro.

He was freed in December 2018 through the GCTA, which became controversial after it was alleged that prisoners had been bribing Bureau of Corrections officials to avail themselves of extended good conduct time and cut short their jail time./TSB