(Eagle News)–Former Calauan, Laguna Mayor Antonio Sanchez filed for executive clemency sometime this year but was denied.
This is according to parole and pardons administration head Manuel Co, who was interviewed on GMA’s News to Go on Thursday, Aug. 22.
“Hindi na nakarating sa Presidente ‘yun… denial na po ang aming desisyon,” Co said.
According to Co, the board denied Sanchez’s bid because he had been convicted of a heinous crime.
Sanchez was sentenced to seven terms of reclusion perpetua, or up to 40 years in prison each, for the murder and rape of University of the Philippines Los Baños student Aileen Sarmenta and the murder of her friend Allan Gomez in the 1990s.
According to Co, Sanchez was also not eligible for parole, which is conditional.
“Ang binibigyan lang ng parole ‘yung merong indeterminate penalty—may minimum at may maximum,” Co said.
Earlier, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said Sanchez and over 10,000 other inmates “may” be released soon after the Supreme Court in June ruled that RA 10592, or the law that increases the Good Conduct Time Allowances given to inmates, should be applied retroactively.
This means that inmates who were given a final judgment prior to the enactment of RA 10592 in 2013, during the time of then-President Benigno Aquino III, could benefit from the law.
Then-Justice Secretary Leila de Lima and then-Interior Secretary Mar Roxas had recommended that the law be applied prospectively, or after its enactment.
Bureau of Corrections chief Nicanor Faeldon urged the public not to assume Sanchez would already be released as the BuCor had yet to compute the former mayor’s good conduct credits.
