THREE BUREAU of Corrections (BuCor) officials who were detained at the premises of the Senate after being cited in contempt questioned the legality of their detention before the Court of Appeals.
In a nine-page petition released to media Wednesday, BuCor Documents and Records chief Ramoncito Roque, Legal Division chief, lawyer Fredric Anthony E. Santos and New Bilibid Prison (NBP) Hospital medical officer, Dr. Ursicio Cenas claimed they were denied due process during the legislative inquiry in aid of legislation into shenanigans in the corrections system.
The Senate probe arose from the controversial implementation of Republic Act 10592 or the Good Conduct Time Allowance (GCTA) law for persons deprived of liberty (PDLs).
The Senate had called on the three last September 11 to shed light on the supposed irregularities in the issuance of “hospital passes” which would allow the inmate to continue serving time in the relative comfort inside the prison hospital instead of with the general prisoner population.
The three claimed that during the inquiry on the ‘hospital pass for sale’ racket, “they were invariably interrupted, their answer peremptorily cut short, preventing them from completing their responses, thereby forfending them from defending themselves against the accusations against them”.
The petitioners also claimed they “were never informed which of their answers were considered “evasive” or “false” and neither were they given the opportunity to dispute said characterization, in other words, no due process was afforded to them,”
“The arrest and continued detention of petitioners is patently unlawful, constituting as it does a manifest and absolute disregard of discretion, a mere exertion of arbitrary power transcending the borders of constitutional limitation,” the three said in their suit.
Named nominal respondents were Senate sergeant at arms Maj. Gen. (ret.) Rene C. Samonte Jr. as well as members of the Senate Committee on Accountability of Public Officers and Investigations led by Sen. Richard Gordon and Senate President Vicente Sotto III.(By Benjamin Pulta)
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