Metro Manila police chief Guillermo Eleazar says there appears to be no connection between the death of Ruperto Traya who worked at the Inmates’ Document Processing Division of the Bureau of Corrections, and the current furor over the aborted release of convicted rapist-murderer Antonio Sanchez, former mayor of Calauan, Laguna.
In the same breath, however, Eleazar said they were still investigating Traya’s killing. How he could deny any connection while the investigation is going on is beyond us.
Instead, Eleazar hinted that the murder—described by local police as “definitely well-planned”—was related to Traya’s alleged involvement in illegal drugs.
But Traya, with the rank of Chief Administrative Officer III, is said to have had a direct hand in the recomputation of the GCTA of the inmates, including Sanchez. A mere coincidence?
President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the release of Sanchez stopped after public outrage at the mere thought of the man walking free. Sanchez had been given seven life sentences for raping and killing a UP Los Baños student and killing her friend. He was also given two earlier life sentences for murdering a father and son.
Sanchez was initially deemed—at least by BuCor officials—eligible under the retroactive application of the Good Conduct Time Allowance Law, passed in 2013 to push for restorative justice and to decongest jails.
This week, however, Sanchez’s family surfaced to claim they had been given notice of their father’s Aug. 20 release. A son claimed to have spoken personally with BuCor chief Nicanor Faeldon, and some officials even congratulated the family for the coming release. Sanchez’s bags had been packed and the release documents had been ready, the family said. All this before the public got wind of the story.
It is not difficult to imagine, therefore, how a public in shock at the audacity and impunity of a murder could easily connect what happened to Traja to the storm inside the national penitentiary, long known to be a hotbed of crime, corruption and other shady transactions that run contrary to the notions of restoration and rehabilitation.
A swift and independent investigation is in order. The murder of one government employee simply trying to do his job is bad enough. It gets grimmer when compounded by the reminder that a place meant to serve justice and to reform criminals itself harbors greater, more insurmountable evils, making a mockery of right and wrong.