More than 200 freed under GCTA surrendered to PNP
More than 200 out of the 1,914 inmates freed due to the Good Conduct Time Allowance (GCTA) law surrendered to the Philippine National Police (PNP).
"Right now, we have 281 surrenderees who voluntarily went to police stations where 47 of them were turned over to the Bureau of Corrections," said Police Brigadier General Bernard Banac, the PNP spokesperson, in an interview with reporters on Thursday.
These inmates were convicted of heinous crimes such as murder, rape, homicide, illegal drugs, and parricide. They were ordered by President Rodrigo Duterte to surrender within 15 days which will be on September 19.
The highest number of surrenderees were recorded in Mimaropa with 38 followed by Cagayan Valley at 34, the PNP said.
Surrenderees with rape and murder charges number 93.
Banac said they are asking BuCor for information they need to locate the remaining freed inmates.
The PNP again urged the inmates to surrender and not wait for the period to end.
"It is better to surrender so that the number of fugitives we will track down will lessen after 15 days," Banac said.
"If they don't want (to surrender) are tracker teams will be deployed to locate each of them," he added.
On the issue of inclusion of Janet Lim-Napoles who is involved in corruption, Banac said they are not yet if she was included in the list of supposed inmates who will be released under GCTA.
In a briefing last Tuesday, Police General Oscar Albayalde said they are not expecting all the freed inmates will surrender to them.
"I am pretty sure that we cannot account the 1,914 (inmates), totally one-by-one... we don't expect those who are subject for recall will surrender," said Albayalde.
Albayalde said the PNP's challenge is locating the inmates as they were not provided with the information they needed.
"Even the pictures previously, after 15 (or) 20 years, they look differently," he said.
Duterte ordered them to surrender to recompute the GCTA granted to them after it was revealed that the law was not properly implemented. Ella Dionisio/DMS
