As far as the Senate investigation would have it, the Good Conduct Time Allowance (GCTA) that reformed and behaving inmates at the Bilibid Prison are supposed to avail of has been for sale, maneuvered of course by the corrupt employees and officials in that agency. This is evidenced by the glaring disqualifications per records of released inmates, and corroborated by both inside and outside witnesses.
Per records, this irregularity has been running on for years. It is no wonder that, presently, more than two thousand convicted criminals had been released. But these are no ordinary inmates; they are big-time personalities—men of wealth, power, and influence. No wonder why they could afford to pay up to 1.5 million pesos each just so they could get out of prison although, according to the law, and based on the crimes they had committed, they never qualify for that GCTA law.
It follows that, with this rampant anomaly in that agency and that on-going abuse of the law, those who truly qualify for GCTA do not at all avail of this privilege, unless of course they would pay for it. GCTA qualifiers are not just reformed and behaved inmates, they must also belong to those who committed lesser crimes. Those who committed heinous crimes, to include rape and drug trade, are not qualified to avail it. But what happened is that, even the disqualified were released after having paid their way to freedom.
And who do you think benefited from these payments? The corrupt individuals at the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor), of course. They are the greedy crocodiles who have been devouring the huge amounts of money thrown at them by these dangerous people in society. They falsify documents, exhibit gross misconduct, and commit serious dishonesty, yet the Civil Service Commission is doing nothing about it amid its mandate to run after real irregularities in government.
Now that this corruption was exposed, authorities are having a hard time running after these released criminals. The government is again spending millions of funds to correct this “error.” Why not penalize these corrupt figures in this agency? Dismissal from service is not even enough; they should be prosecuted and jailed if the government is really serious in its anti-corruption campaign. To stop corruption, get rid of corrupt people.
