Bilibid washes hands of Leviste parole

Jose Antonio Leviste. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

The national penitentiary has washed its hands of any wrongdoing in the parole last week of convicted killer Antonio Leviste.

Sought for comment after President Aquino questioned on Monday the granting of early parole to the former Batangas governor and businessman, New Bilibid Prison (NBP) Supt. Venancio Tesoro said that as far as the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) was concerned, the agency simply followed procedures.

“For our part in BuCor, if a person has completed his or her minimum sentence, we automatically process their parole papers. We submit it to the parole board and it is up to them to deliberate whether or not the inmate is fit for parole,” Tesoro explained.

On Jan. 12, 2007, Leviste admitted to shooting dead his longtime aide Rafael de las Alas, during an argument in his office in Legaspi Village, Makati City. Leviste, the former husband of Sen. Loren Legarda, was convicted of homicide in 2009, and sentenced to a minimum of six years and a maximum of 12 years at the national penitentiary.

Earlier, Tesoro explained that though Leviste had been in the prison for only four years, with the “good conduct time allowance” as well as his previous detention in the Makati City jail, the former governor was considered to have met his minimum sentence.

Prison escape

Tesoro explained that the NBP also submitted a report to the parole board about Leviste’s “escape” in 2011, for which the penal facility charged him in a Makati court for evasion of serving sentence.

The court, however, junked the charges, giving credence to Leviste’s argument that he had left prison grounds with permission from BuCor.

Despite court clearance, the BuCor had “administratively” sanctioned Leviste by revoking his living-out privileges, transferring him from the minimum to the maximum security compound, punishing him with “closed confinement for two months” without visitors and counting his leaving the prison against his good conduct time allowance, Tesoro said.

Tesoro said it was up to the parole board to have considered that “derogatory record.”

“Had they considered it, his parole could have been deferred. But they positively reviewed his records,” he said.

Tesoro suggested that BuCor personnel be invited as members of the parole board “to interpret” the inmate records.