In GCTA mess, Congress should review the law and erect a penal system that works
Credit to Author: The Manila Times| Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2019 16:13:18 +0000
AT last, after weeks of televised inquiry and wearisome grandstanding, some members of Congress have expressed interest in reviewing the Good Conduct Time Allowance (GCTA) Law, or RA 10575, to improve or even repeal it.
It has dawned on lawmakers that the mountain of problems triggered by the GCTA Law may not be merely the result of incompetent or crooked implementation by prison officials, but principally caused by defects in the law itself, not just the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) for it.
Tired of just watching the long-running Senate inquiry into the GCTA mess, House members said they want to have their own inquiry into the controversies surrounding the GCTA Law and the early release of heinous crime convicts.
Rizal Rep. Fidel Nograles said the chamber’s investigation would help lawmakers amend the GCTA Law to remove confusion and ambiguity and to establish standards for “good conduct” that would be used to shorten prison terms.
Lawmakers need to address mismatching provisions in the Revised Penal Code and the GCTA Law and provide a clear-cut definition of what constitutes a heinous crime.
Nograles said people found guilty beyond reasonable doubt of heinous crimes must not be entitled to early release under the law.
In the Senate, Minority Leader Franklin Drilon declared that the Department of Justice must have “direct control and supervision” over the Bureau of Corrections, which supervises the national penitentiary and other prisons, to curb corruption and illegal activities there.
Drilon, a former secretary of justice, said Republic Act 10575, or The Bureau of Corrections Act of 2013, must be amended because the agency had become “too powerful” and its officials “are to be blamed for the corrupt practices in the bureau.”
Under the law, the DoJ’s control over the BuCor is limited to administrative supervision.
“The justice secretary is left in the dark because he has no direct control and supervision of the bureau,” Drilon said.
Sen. Panfilo Lacson earlier claimed that some 2,000 drug lords and convicted rapists had been released even while the GCTA policy, which could reduce penalties for prisoners on account of good conduct, does not cover heinous crimes.
Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra has vowed to propose several reform measures, including amendments to RA 10575, to give the DoJ tighter control over BuCor.
“I am beginning to think that the law itself that supposedly strengthened the BuCor, and consequently diminished DoJ control over it, may have to be reviewed,” Guevarra said.
Under RA 10575, the BuCor became a line agency of the DoJ, not a constituent bureau, giving the department only administrative supervision, not control, over the agency.
Will two congressional investigations improve matters? Or will they just confuse some more the already bewildered citizens?
The House is entitled to have its own inquiry, and its own hour in the spotlight.
The important question, however, is to establish a full picture and account what has gone wrong at BuCor and our national penitentiary. Our correctional system today is an institutional and functional calamity. It cries for policy change.
We will say again that the Congress must amend or even repeal the GCTA Law, because it made all the abominations possible. It should review, amend, or even repeal the law together.
It is no good for the Congress to just regale the public with hoary tales about convict releases being bought and sold at our national penitentiary and other prisons, and all kinds of corruption in our penal system.
The correction to this blight in our government must begin with changing a badly crafted law. Then culpable prison officials should be jailed themselves. Congress must get to work.
Then can we hope for a penal system that works.