Rocero, Kyla Camille B.

September 16, 2019

Grade 12 H.E – C Mrs. Vegafria

The Good Conduct Time Allowance (GCTA) Law is not the first enactment of its kind. Many judges
have floundered on the test of applying the Indeterminate Sentence Law. It is the piece of legislation that
qualifies the application of penalties prescribed in the Revised Penal Code, requiring the imposition of an
“indeterminate sentence” so that the possibility of an earlier release is offered the inmate who conducts
himself properly and shows himself capable of a restored place in society. Then there was the
administrative order of the Supreme Court that detainees who had been kept in detention for a period
equaling that of the sentences they could receive if found guilty (or even longer!) should be released.

And these were all laudable, as the GCTA is. Life gives us all repeated chances, and it would be ironic if
we were to deny that to others. And no, that the GCTA and other salutary measures like it may have been
misused and abused is certainly no valid reason to insist on the death penalty. For as long as the system of
criminal justice is fallible — as it always will be — the mere possibility that an innocent man is put to
death should, by all norms of ethics, stay the hand that would end another’s life. Non potest agere in
dubio.

To want to consign an offender to prison for the rest of his life (and some would even have several life
sentences served successively!) is nothing more than the primitive drive for revenge — and the law was
instituted precisely to curb revenge and all its deleteriousness and unbridled excess. Criminal procedure
and court proceedings effect a juridical distance between the criminal act and all the animosity it fans and
the penalty. It will not do to vindicate the right of the victim to life and to liberty by negating the life and
the liberty of the offender. You do not uphold value by protecting it in one case and canceling it in
another. After all, the criminal justice system does not exist to satisfy the victims or their relatives, but to
satisfy the demands of justice and to vindicate the legal order.

Republic Act No. 10592 is seen as a testament to the belief that jails and prisons are meant to be places of
reform and that good conduct should warrant a detained person’s release.

As laws are meant to be safeguards for justice, the challenge before the government, particularly the
executive branch, is to ensure that only that only those who have exhibited good behaviour throughout the
years benefit from good conduct time allowance system, including the case of former Calauan mayor
Antonio Sanchez.

Every case must be examined, throughly reviewed, and that transparency of the entire process must be
assured, including proper due notice to victims of crimes, especially that the good conduct allowances
cannot be revoked once granted.

We must be wary of the haphazard application of this law. Releasing an underserving offender will only
perpetuate injustice.

As such, we welcome statements coming from the government, particularly the Department of Justice and
the Bureau of Corrections, committing careful scrutiny of cases that may qualify under the law and its
retroactive application, as decided by the Supreme Court.

Equal protection of laws is surely a guaranteed right. But laws should always be reasonably applied to
further justice and protect rights—not otherwise.