I.

Citing a 1908 decision, the SC said the law served a double purpose: to
“encourage the convict in an effort to reform” and “induce...habits of industry
and good conduct” in the person beyond one’s sentence, and “aid to
discipline” various jails and penitentiaries.

II. Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen, Your Honors.

III. The negative is firm in its stand that the GCTA Law should not be suspended.

IV. But before that, your honor, let me rebut few points of the affirmative.

It is the concession of the affirmative that there exist gray areas in the law
thus it needs to be suspended. However, it is our submission that there is
nothing wrong in GCTA Law. The problem lies not in the law itself but in its
implementation. To make matters worse, during the suspension of the GCTA,
the executive through DILG as approved by DOJ crafted a new IRR which
does not only set aside the ruling of the Supreme Court in the case of New
Bilibid Prisoners v De Lima in including heinous crimes but also blatantly
violated the Constitution by making the law prospective in nature.

Elementary is the rule in statutory construction that when there is ambiguity

in the law, it must be ruled in favor of the accused.

This serves as an executive legislation which through the new IRR the law has
been amended with an effect prejudicing those who deserve GCTA, contrary
to the principles of equal protection and ex-post facto law.

V. On to my constructive, your honor.

VI. Your Honor, the non-suspension of the GCTA Law is beneficial based on the
following grounds.

VII. First point your honor; THERE WILL BE NO EXODUS OF INMATES IN THE
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE LAW.

VIII. Any release of eligible inmates would have to be based on two factual
determinations and one arithmetical computation.
 IX. The first factual determination is that they are eligible to the GCTA, i.e., under
Article 29 or Article 97. The second factual determination is that they have
actually been on good behavior within the periods specified in Article 97 to
merit the GCTA.

X. Assuming these two factual determinations are made, the arithmetical

computation would come in. Each eligible inmate’s GCTA would have to be
applied to the respective sentence each is serving to determine if the
remaining sentence will be zero, a few weeks, months, or years. Only if the
eligible inmate’s sentence, after applying the GCTA, is zero will there be
immediate release.

XI. Second point, your Honor; THE VERY REASON OF THE GCTA LAW IS TO
DECONGEST OVERPOPULATED PRISONS AND TO INDUCE GOOD HABIT AND
CONDUCT IN PRISON.

XII. The Good Conduct time allowance must not be suspended simply because of
the misapplication or abuse of some government officials.

XIII. Let not the legitimacy and the well-settled wisdom of the law be clouded or
demolished by its misapplication, abuses in enforcement or wrongdoings on
the part of the designated implementors of the law.

XIV. We ask that it be dredge, foremost, into our collective consciousness, the
merits of the GCTA Law as rooted in the restorative philosophy or principles
that underlie our modern criminal justice and correctional systems.

XV. To borrow the words of Sen De Lima, to junk this law is to retrogress from
hard-won triumphs in the legal universe. To paraphrase a line from a movie
which tackles, in part, the fluid majesty of Law, ‘we ought not to be affected
by the weather of the day,’ but should be by the ‘climate of the era.

XVI. What is needed is not the amendment or suspension of the law but to look
thoroughly and make sure that the implementation is proper.
Counsel, good Evening!

Just a mere yes or no, please.

1. Counsel, are you aware of the status of congestion in prisons right now?
2. How about the number of eligible prisoners of GCTA who are still serving
sentence?
3. And yet, Calauan Mayor Sanchez has been rumored to be eligible and set
out to be freed.
4. Would you agree with me that based on these facts, there exists a fault in the
execution of the GCTA Law?
5. How about the nature of our penal laws, isn’t it restorative in nature?
6. Counsel, you are familiar of the revised penal code right?
7. Then it is safe to say that you are aware of the merit of eligibility in granting
GCTA?
8. Would it be possible that a large number of prisoners be set free at the same
time?
9. Your honors, if the law is implemented the way the crafters have envisioned it
to be, then there will be no problem existing in its execution. The burden to
prove that they are already rehabilitated lies in the prisoners. Our penal laws
are very clear from the moment the Revised Penal Code has been
implemented that it is restorative in nature. To deny them their rights is a
blatant disrespect to the human rights of every prisoners.