Inmates prematurely released have until 11:59 p.m. today to surrender-DOJ

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MANILA, Philippines–Inmates who were prematurely released because of the time shaved off their prison sentences by the Good Conduct Time Allowance (GCTA) law,  have up to 11:59 p.m. today, Thursday to surrender, Justice Undersecretary Markk Perete said.

“After that, the rearrest will be effective,” Perete told reporters.

He said the Department of Justice (DOJ) will provide the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) the list of names of persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) with their photos and other details as a guild in their rearrest.

“Before the day ends, the DOJ will transmit to DILG a cleaned-up list of PDLs prematurely released because of erroneous application of the expanded GCTA law,” Perete said.

He said “the list will include pertinent data to ensure that only those who should be returned to prison will be rearrested.”

“It should minimize incidents of mistaken identity and save the government resources related to manhunt operations,” Perete added.

As of 11:30 a.m. Thursday, 1, 304 PDLs have surrendered. The Bureau of Immigration (BI) on the other hand confirmed no PDL left the country.

The BuCor submitted a list containing the names of 1,914 PDLs who were allegedly prematurely released because of the computation of their good conduct time allowance (GCTA) credits since year 2013. The list, however was riddled with errors.

READ: 356 of 487 convicts who surrendered not in BuCor list given to Senate

Perete said they currently have a partial list from BuCor that is being counter-checked.

“This is going to be partial because precisely the number of surrenderers is not yet final as of this point. What we are doing now…is verify exactly what kind of crimes the PDLs have committed so that we can delete those who are supposed to be or who should not be excluded from the benefits of the GCTA Law,” Perete said in a press conference.

Perete said the complete list will be provided “before the end of the day.”

After the deadline, Guevarra said the inmates who refused to comply with President Rodrigo Duterte’s orders can be arrested without a warrant.

“We gave you notice, we gave you a grace period of 15 days (yet) you refused without justifiable reason then in effect you are committing the offense of evasion of sentence,” Guevarra earlier said.

READ: Inmates still at large told: You got 4 days to yield or face warrantless arrest

Last Sept. 4 President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the 1,914 PDLs, who were convicted of heinous crimes but were believed to have been prematurely released as a result of their GCTA, to surrender and subject themselves to the re-computation of their GCTA credits.

After the deadline, convicts released because of the GCTA law who did not surrender,  will be considered fugitives and would be captured dead or alive. The President also offered a P1-million bounty for each released convict who refused to surrender.  /muf