Solon tells freed convicts to wait for arrest warrant

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY –– Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez on Wednesday advised convicts who were freed based on the Good Conduct Time Allowance (GCTA) law, not to surrender to authorities.

Instead, Rodriguez said, they should await the issuance of an arrest warrant for them so they could go back to the correctional facility where they were serving their respective sentences.

Rodriguez, who co-authored Republic Act No. 10592 or the GCTA law, explained that only an arrest warrant issued by the court that meted the person a sentence could compel a former inmate to return to prison.

The GCTA law has been in the public spotlight lately following the controversial release of heinous crime convicts by the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor).

The controversy has led to the sacking of BuCor chief Nicanor Faeldon.

To assuage the public uproar, President Duterte called on freed convicts to hand themselves in to authorities and go back to prison while a supposedly no-nonsense reconsideration of their eligibility for GCTA credits is being done.

In Northern Mindanao, the eight convicts under the watch list have already surrendered to the police./lzb