GCTA probe not directed at de Lima – Gordon

SEN. Richard Gordon on Thursday said the Senate investigation on the alleged Good Conduct Time Allowance (GCTA) scandal was not directed at Sen. Leila de Lima.

The senator stressed this after de Lima chided him for supposedly accusing her that she had “benefited” from the GCTA Law to raise campaign funds from convicted inmates for her Senate campaign in 2016.

De Lima, who, along with former

Interior and Local Government secretary Manuel Roxas 2nd, approved the implementing rules and regulations ( IRR) or Republic Act 10592 or the “Expanded GCTA Law.”

The improper implementation of GCTA Law was unearthed following the botched attempt to free convicted killer and rapist, former Calauan, Laguna mayor Antonio Sanchez.

De Lima said in a recent interview Gordon alluded anew that she crafted a vague IRR for the GCTA Law to raise campaign funds.

De Lima, who was detained in 2017 on drug charges, maintained that the original IRR of the GCTA Law “is consistent with the law itself and in keeping with the principle of restorative justice.”

“I do not really know what Senator Gordon’s beef with me is. He is the only source of the supposed rumor that I used the GCTA IRR to shake down prisoners,” de Lima said in a statement.

Gordon, in a chance interview, said, “I’m not trying to pick a fight with her. She has enough trouble. She should have seen it right away that there was something wrong with the GCTA.”

“I try to investigate properly and I’m not trying to accuse her of anything. I’m just saying she should have caught it as it is,” he added.