The revised implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the good conduct time allowance (GCTA) law take effect on October 4th. The new IRR excludes recidivists, escapees, habitual delinquents, and convicts of heinous crimes from earning reduced sentences through good behavior. It also clarifies that those convicted of heinous crimes after the law took effect in 2013 will not be eligible for GCTA at all. The changes aim to prevent the early release of dangerous criminals like Antonio Sanchez following public outrage over the issue.
The revised implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the good conduct time allowance (GCTA) law take effect on October 4th. The new IRR excludes recidivists, escapees, habitual delinquents, and convicts of heinous crimes from earning reduced sentences through good behavior. It also clarifies that those convicted of heinous crimes after the law took effect in 2013 will not be eligible for GCTA at all. The changes aim to prevent the early release of dangerous criminals like Antonio Sanchez following public outrage over the issue.
The revised implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the good conduct time allowance (GCTA) law take effect on October 4th. The new IRR excludes recidivists, escapees, habitual delinquents, and convicts of heinous crimes from earning reduced sentences through good behavior. It also clarifies that those convicted of heinous crimes after the law took effect in 2013 will not be eligible for GCTA at all. The changes aim to prevent the early release of dangerous criminals like Antonio Sanchez following public outrage over the issue.
The revised implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the good conduct time allowance (GCTA) law take effect on October 4th. The new IRR excludes recidivists, escapees, habitual delinquents, and convicts of heinous crimes from earning reduced sentences through good behavior. It also clarifies that those convicted of heinous crimes after the law took effect in 2013 will not be eligible for GCTA at all. The changes aim to prevent the early release of dangerous criminals like Antonio Sanchez following public outrage over the issue.
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THE REVISED implementing rules on the early release of convicts for good
conduct take effect today, Oct. 4.
Justice Secretary Menardo I. Guevarra said the revised implementing rules
and regulations (IRR) of the good conduct time allowance (GCTA) law will take effect even though there is a pending petition before the Supreme Court questioning it.
“Yes (it will take effect). The petitioners did not ask for a restraining order, much less would the Supreme Court consider it at all,” he said in a cellphone message.
The Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior and Local Government revised the rules for GCTA, disqualifying recidivists, escapees, habitual delinquents, and convicts of heinous crimes.
This came following reports that former Calauan mayor Antonio L. Sanchez, who was convicted of rape and murder in 1995 for the killing of two University of the Philippines students in 1993, was about to be released early for good conduct.
President Rodrigo R. Duterte then ordered the surrender of 1,914 convicts of
heinous crimes who had been released through GCTA. He also dismissed prison chief Nicanor E. Faeldon due to the controversy.
Eight convicts at the national penitentiary in Muntinlupa City asked the
Supreme Court to void some provisions of the IRR, particularly the rules on the disqualification of recidivists, escapees, habitual delinquents, and convicts of heinous crimes.
They also asked the court to order prison officials to refrain from applying retroactively the exclusions and to recompute their time credits. Exclusion from credit for preventive imprisonment should not be applied retroactively as well, petitioners claimed.
Chief Justice Lucas P. Bersamin said the court had given the Office of the Solicitor General, the state counsel, 10 days to comment on the petition. — Vann Marlo M. Villegas
The new IRR says heinous crime convicts after the law became effective in 2013 shall not be entitled to any type of good conduct time allowance
MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) have revised the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of the Good Conduct Time Allowance law (GCTA law), responding to public outcry over the near-release of high-profile convict Antonio Sanchez.
The new IRR of Republic Act 10592 or the GCTA law now categorically excludes heinous crime convicts like Sanchez from the benefits of the GCTA Law.
Here are the salient amendments in the new IRR:
1. Recidivists, habitual delinquents, escapees, those charged with heinous crimes and an accused who, upon being summoned for the execution of his sentence has failed to surrender voluntarily before a court of law, are excluded from good conduct time allowance under RA 10592 (Section 2, Rule IV)
2. Prisoners disqualified under RA 10592, such as heinous crime convicts, but who were convicted before the law became effective in 2013 shall be entitled to good conduct time allowance under the Revised Penal Code (2nd paragraph, Section 1, Rule XIII)
3. Prisoners disqualified under RA 10592, such as heinous crime convicts, and who were convicted after the law became effective in 2013, shall not be entitled to any type of good conduct time allowance (3rd paragraph, Section 1, Rule XIII)
4. Heinous crimes are the same heinous crimes defined under Republic Act 7659 or the now-repealed death penalty law. It is the DOJ's view that RA 7659 was repealed only insofar as imposing the death penalty, but not the definition of heinous crimes (Section 1n, Rule II)
5. To increase transparency, the Management, Screening and Evaluation Committee
(MSEC) shall publish the list of prisoners who may be qualified for release on 3 conspicuous places within the jail premises and/or uploaded in their respective websites subject to the Data Privacy Act (Section 3c, Rule VIII)
6. The MSEC shall invite representatives from accredited civil society organizations to appear as observers during deliberations (Section 4, Rule VIII)
7. To encourage sustained good behavior, the new IRR says accrued time allowances shall be granted at the end of the prisoners' 2nd year, 5th year, 10th year, 11th year and every year thereafter (Section 2, Rule IX)
In the new rule, GCTAs accrue monthly to follow the law, but are granted at the end of the 2nd year, 5th year, 10th year, 11th year, and beyond.
"So therefore if a particular prisoner for example commits an offense, a grave offense, within a 2-year period, then in the operational guidelines you may have a basis to say that that particular prisoner, by virtue of his commission of an offense, forfeits the entire accrued time allowance," Justice Undersecretary Markk Perete said in a news conference on Friday September 20.
8. The grant of time allowances to a disqualified prisoner, whether under the previous or present Rules, shall not extinguish criminal liability (Section 1, Rule X)
