New GCTA manual ‘nearing completion’: Guevarra

FILE: Senior Deputy Executive Secretary Menardo Guevarra announces during a press briefing in Malacañang. TOTO LOZANO/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO

MANILA — Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra on Monday said the new manual for the Good Conduct and Time Allowance (GCTA) computation of inmates and detainees under Republic Act 10592 or the Expanded GCTA Law is nearing completion.

Guevarra said there is no interruption in granting the benefits to entitled persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) under the said law even if the manual is not yet complete since GCTA PDLs continue under the interim implementing rules and regulations drafted jointly by the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG).

“Even without that operating manual the computation of the GCTA based on the revised implementing rules and regulations that the DOJ came up with together with the DILG are enough to continue the processing of the GCTA,” Guevarra said.

He added that it may be completed by the end of January next year.

A petition before the SC has been filed last September by lawyers representing inmates from the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) asking to stop the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) and the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) from retroactively applying the exclusions introduced under Section 1 of the Expanded GCTA Law and relations to provisions of the IRR.

The petitioners told the high court that said provisions are “disadvantageous to any prisoners”.

The GCTA law was marred in controversy following earlier reports that convicted rapist and murderer, former Calauan, Laguna mayor Antonio Sanchez, is among those who will be entitled to an early release from prison due to a June 25 Supreme Court (SC) ruling.