Manhunt for freed heinous crimes convicts starts Oct. – DOJ

Law enforcers are expected to start by October its manhunt of freed heinous crimes convicts who failed to heed the call of President Rodrigo Duterte to surrender.

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra pointed this out as he hopes the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) will come out with its “cleaned up” list containing the names of freed heinous crimes convicts before September ends.

“By September 30 we will be coming up with that cleaned up list, yung mga heinous crimes convicts who are still out there,” he told reporters on Thursday (Sept. 26).

On the other hand, the Secretary remains unsure if the cleaned up list will be completed by then.

“Hindi namin matiyak kung lahat ay maililista namin by September 30 but for sure meron kaming ilalabas para maibigay sa DILG, sa PNP so that they can start hunting them (We don’t know if we will complete it by September 30 but for sure we will issue a list to the Department of Interior and Local Government and the Philippine National Police so they can start the manhunt),” Guevarra assured.

Earlier, the BuCor released the names of 1,914 convicts who were freed because of good conduct time allowance (GCTA).

However, President Duterte ordered them to surrender by September 19 due to concerns that unqualified inmates including those convicted of heinous crimes were among those released.

There are so far 2,221 freed convicts who have surrendered which is way more than the expected number.

Guevarra also revealed the BuCor will start releasing this Thursday (Sept. 26) those who are not in the list.

“Several will be released today,” the Secretary said.

“We really hope that it could have been earlier pero to be very frank medyo hindi maayos ang record keeping ng BuCor (to be frank BuCor has no good record keeping),” he lamented.

Meanwhile, the revised implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of Republic Act 10592 is expected to take effect after 15 days since its publication in newspapers last September 19.

RA 10592 which was passed in 2013 amended provisions of the Revised Penal Code (RPC) to increase the GCTAs granted to inmates and allowed their much earlier release.

“With the new IRR in place, we of course expect the BuCor to make the computation of GCTA proper,” Guevarra said.

“In other words alisin niyo na kaagad yan, wag ninyo na computin yung mga convicted of heinous crime dahil hindi sila kasama sa additional benefits (In other words, they should no longer include in the computations of GCTAs those convicted of heinous crimes because they are excluded from receiving additional benefits),” he explained.