MANILA, Philippines — The National Capital Region Police Office has suspended re-arresting convicts freed through a controversial law, but continues to monitor them.
Police Major General Guillermo Eleazar, NCRPO Director, told DZBB that they suspended the tracker teams they earlier deployed for the re-arrest of convicts of heinous crimes freed through the Good Conduct and Time Allowance law.
“They (tracker teams) are still deployed outside and monitoring because for now, we have 170 on the list whose addresses are in Metro Manila,” he said in a mix of Filipino and English.
The police were expected to start re-arresting them midnight of September 20, or when President Rodrigo Duterte’s imposed deadline for the released inmates expired.
But the Department of Justice early morning of Friday said they requested past midnight that the re-arrest be put on hold.
BuCor verifying case records
Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said they asked the law enforcement agencies to halt the re-arrest while the Bureau of Corrections continues to verify the case records of some of the ex-inmates who surrendered.
In an interview with ANC’s Headstart, Guevarra said he received information that some inmates who turned themselves in are “in what we may call gray zone or gray area” since they cannot determine whether they were convicted of heinous crimes.
“Just to make sure that nobody’s life and personal security would be endangered, this morning, I requested the head of the Department of Interior and Local Government and also the head of the [Philippine National Police], Secretary [Eduardo] Año, I recommended to him in the meantime that the BuCor is tallying the record, the count, verifying the case records of those in the gray area, we requested that further law enforcement operations be suspended in the meantime,” he explained.
Eleazar, however, said in the radio interview that they have arrested four freed convicts overnight. One was arrested in Makati City, another in Muntinlupa and two in Manila; all jailed for the crime of rape.
The DOJ said that by midnight of September 20, just when Duterte’s deadline lapsed, there have been 1,950 freed convicts at the BuCor.
BuCor earlier said that there are 1,914 convicts of heinous crimes freed through the GCTA law.
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The DOJ, meanwhile, said that they will give a “cleaned up” list to the Department of Interior and Local Government to guide them in implementing the re-arrest.