Declaring that “everybody will have to go,” President Rodrigo Duterte announced a massive revamp in the Bureau of Corrections amid revelations of widespread corruption and gross incompetence in the management of the penal system.
READ: Drop BuCor probe, Palace tells PACC
“I will hit you not because the law was in limbo but because of corruption,” President Duterte said, addressing BuCor officials in a speech Thursday.
The law in question was the Good Conduct Time Allowance Law that prison officials used as basis to free almost 2,000 inmates convicted of heinous crimes.
Ombudsman Samuel Martires earlier ordered 27 BuCor officials suspended for six months without pay as a result of the scandal.
BuCor documents section chief Ramoncito Roque led the list of those suspended.
Roque was accused by Yolanda Camilon of extorting P50,000 for the early release of her common-law husband, Godfrey Gamboa, who was an inmate at the national penitentiary.
Maribel Bancil and Veronica Buño, who were tagged as Roque’s middlemen, were also suspended.
Duterte ordered officials who were next in rank to take over the positions of those who were suspended, Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said in a television interview Friday.
The Ombudsman and the Senate have launched separate investigations to unearth irregularities in the computation of GCTA allowing the early release of some prisoners, including those who committed heinous crimes.
Panelo said more heads would roll.
Three New Bilibid Prison officials”•Roque, Ursicio Cenas, and Frederic Anthony Santos”•were ordered detained in rooms at the Office of the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms at the basement of the Senate building for their conflicting testimonies before the Senate Blue Ribbon committee.
Committee chairman Senator Richard Gordon said the three will remain in detention until they satisfactorily answer the senators’ questions.
“The senators would like to see some measure of forthrightness, truthfulness so that they won’t take us for a ride. We’re working, and they’re strolling. My questions are easy but they’re evasive,” Gordon said.
Roque denied the allegations made against him and said he made several attempts to return the money to Camilon. He also claimed that Bansil and Buño set him up.
Bansil and Buño also denied the accusations, saying it was Camilon who insisted on giving the money.
Meanwhile, opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima on Friday chided the government for using her as a scapegoat in the fiasco brought about by the granting of GCTA credits by sacked BuCor chief Nicanor Faeldon to unqualified or undeserving inmates.
She also castigated Senator Richard Gordon for his “irresponsible theory” that she has used the GCTA Law to raise funds from convicted inmates to bankroll her senatorial campaign.
She slammed Gordon for accusing her of deliberately committing what he called “an honest mistake” in crafting vague Implementing Rules and Regulations for the GCTA Law to raise campaign funds in exchange for the early release of high-profile prisoners.
“I take serious offense at Gordon’s arrogance and impudence to even insinuate that I benefited from the Good Conduct Time Allowance Law without substantiating it with any corroborating testimonial or documentary evidence,” said De Lima.
During the last hearing of the Senate committee on justice and human rights which he chaired, Gordon said the theory that De Lima used the GCTA Law to generate campaign funding “sounds convincing” but admitted he had no evidence to support this view.
She also slammed Gordon for reading the statements of inmates who had testified against her in her drug case.
“These testimonies are, I repeat, false and malicious imputations of two witnesses who do not have any credibility at all. [Rafael] Ragos and [Jovencio] Ablen [Jr.], lest we forget, have confessed in their involvement in anomalous activities within BuCor/NBP and had to save their own skin through their lies about me,” De Lima said.
She hit Gordon and Senators Panfilo Lacson and Francis Tolentino for using their questioning of Ragos and Ablen to testify against her.
She pointed out that Ragos and Ablen previously gave perjured testimony against her during the 2016 House Justice Committee hearings and also in her ongoing trial before the Regional Trial Court of Muntinlupa.
“They were lying then. They continue to do so, under the direction of Duterte and his operators,” she added.
In related developments:
The leftist Makabayan bloc in the House of Representatives said the GCTA scandal revealed President Duterte’s war on drugs and his anti-crime and corruption crusade as “a huge scam.” In a statement, it said: “The Makabayan bloc is one with the Filipino people in expressing outrage and disgust over the release of nearly 2,000 convicted criminals, mostly under the Duterte regime through negotiated deals under the GCTA Law.”
The camp of alleged pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim Napoles on Friday denied reports that she applied for early release under the GCTA Law, after her name appeared in a list of alleged beneficiaries prepared by BuCor. Her lawyer also denied that she had any pending rape case, as the BuCor list showed. With Rio N. Araja and PNA
READ: Gordon on Napoles GCTA roster: Stupid mistake
READ: Ombudsman boots out 3 more in BuCor