MANILA, Philippines – Former Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile on Wednesday said that detained Senator Leila de Lima and former Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas should be perpetually barred from seeking public office for the alleged confusion created by the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) they crafted for the good conduct time allowance (GCTA) law.
Enrile blamed De Lima and Roxas for the irregularities in the implementation of the law which led to the questionable release of 1,914 heinous crimes convicts.
“They should be disqualified forever from holding public office,” the former lawmaker said when asked by reporters at the Senate about the possible liability of De Lima and Roxas over the mess.
The former senator said the Republic Act 10592, which expanded the GCTA given to inmates, clearly states that convicts involved in heinous crimes are among those excluded from availing of the early release rule based on good conduct credits.
Enrile said the IRR crafted by De Lima and Roxas, which supposedly added heinous crime convicts as GCTA beneficiaries, was “unconstitutional and void ab initio (from the beginning).”
Enrile was the Senate president when the GCTA law was approved in 2013.
“Sila ang may kasalanan sila ang gumawa eh the people below them are being guided by what they did,” he said.
The 95-year old former lawmaker said heinous convicts wrongly released under the GCTA law who continue to refuse to surrender to authorities could now be hunted since they are not supposed to be released in the first place.
President Rodrigo Duterte earlier set a 15-day deadline for these convicts to surrender for investigation and recomputation of their good conduct credits.
The ultimatum, which Duterte issued on Sept. 4, will lapse on Sept. 19 (Thursday).
The president earlier warned GCTA-freed heinous criminals who remain at large will be treated as fugitives from justice if they failed to comply with the order. He also pushed through with his plan to offer P1 million bounty for the capture of each heinous crime convicts.
But De Lima said the Ombudsman has no jurisdiction or authority over her as a sitting senator, citing Section 21 of the Ombudsman Act of 1989.
She also said she has no official capacity to reply to the Ombudsman’s query on the GCTA issue as she is no longer the Secretary of Justice.
“[I] would like to clarify that I am no longer the Secretary of Justice. I am now a Senator of the Republic. I cannot in my official capacity as a Senator reply to a query that exclusively pertains to official business of the Department of Justice whose present Secretary is Menardo Guevarra,” De Lima said in a statement.
READ: De Lima says Ombudsman request for explanation on GCTA rules ‘highly irregular’
Guevarra, however, refused to blame any body about the mess, saying they already revised the law’s implementing rules to specifically state who among the convicts are ineligible from availing GCTA grants.
“We at the DOJ won’t dwell on things that had come to pass, much less waste our time on an unproductive blame game. The revised IRR reflects our best interpretation of RA 10592 as it was actually crafted, finalized, and signed,” he said in a statement. – RRD (with details from Correspondent Grace Casin)
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