Roxas responds to Ombudsman
(Eagle News)–Ombudsman Samuel Martires has warned Senator Leila de Lima against refusing to answer his queries on the Good Conduct Time Allowance law.
“Ayoko mamilosopo, pero ‘pag pinilit ako mamilosopo, mamimilosopo rin ako,” Martires said.
Martires made the remark after De Lima told the Ombudsman to direct its queries on the implementing rules and regulations of the law that reduces the sentence of inmates for good conduct to the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior and Local Government instead.
The Ombudsman, as part of its probe, had asked De Lima and Mar Roxas, who were then the justice secretary and Interior secretary when the IRR were issued in 2014, to explain why they did not explicitly ban convicts of heinous crimes from availing of the benefits of the law.
The Ombudsman had noted the law itself excludes this category of inmates from benefiting from the measure.
The Ombudsman probe was launched following outrage over the release of convicts of heinous crimes under the law.
In her three-page letter to Martires, De Lima said she was “no longer the Secretary of Justice,” and was “now a Senator of the Republic.”
As such, she said “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.”
Roxas response
Roxas, for his part, said in his response to the Ombudsman that he found the IRR “faithfully reflects the provisions” of the GCTA law.
“The IRR is worded to the greatest extent practicable in a manner consistent with the law it implements,” he said, adding that they could not go beyond what the law itself provides.
Even then, Roxas noted that the IRR, which was the work of a special joint committee constituted by the DOJ and the DILG, “all enjoy the presumption of regularity until they are overcome by no less than clear and convincing evidence to the contrary.”
“I trust that your office will find the foregoing helpful,” Roxas said.
