(Eagle News)–Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon has expressed support for an amendment to Republic Act No. 10575, or the Bureau of Corrections Act of 2013, to allow the Department of Justice to have direct control and supervision over BuCor.
In supporting Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra’s proposal, Drilon noted there were “a number of critical agencies over which the department has limited to zero control.”
He said apart from the BuCor, these were the Public Attorneys Office, the National Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Immigration.
He said in the case of the BuCor, under RA No. 10575, the BuCor director-general had become “all-too powerful.”
He said under the law, “the justice secretary is left in the dark because he has no direct control and supervision of the bureau.”
This means, he said, “nagkikita lang ang BuCor at Secretary of Justice kapag panahon ng budget, dahil wala siyang supervision and control.”
“Corrupt officials in the BuCor took advantage of the law that gave too much power to the bureau to the extent that there is no more check and balance,” he said.
He said as for Senator Leila de Lima, “she is not at fault.”
He said she was only “exercising her best judgment in interpreting the law.”
“Tututol po ako sa committee report kung sasabihin nila na may pagkukulang si Sen. De Lima. It is clear that Senator De Lima was trying to interpret the law that the Congress passed, which was vague,” he said.
It was Guevarra who proposed to review RA No. 10575, which he said was being used by BuCor to justify the release of convicts without the approval of the justice secretary.
The Palace has blamed the implementing rules and regulations of RA No. 10592, or the Good Conduct Time Allowance law that reduces the sentence given to inmates for good conduct, for the release of convicts of heinous crimes that outraged the public.
The Ombudsman, which is conducting a probe into the GCTA law, has noted that RA No. 10592 itself specified convicts of heinous crimes as being excluded from availing of the benefits of the law, but the IRR did not include this ban on this category of inmates.
The Ombudsman has asked De Lima and Mar Roxas, who were justice secretary and Interior secretary respectively when the IRR were issued in 2014, to submit their explanations.
