Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 2) — Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque questioned a local court’s decision to reduce United States Marine Lance Corporal Joseph Scott Pemberton’s prison time through good conduct time allowance (GCTA) credits even if the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) did not recommend it.
Roque, who had been the private legal counsel of victim Jennifer Laude’s family, told CNN Philippines on Wednesday that the move by the Olongapo City Regional Trial Court raises legal questions.
“Our laws provide that the allowance for good conduct must be recommended by the BuCor and even jail warden,” he said. “The BuCor did not recommend any allowance for good conduct, so why did [the court] consider it when the rules are very clear?”
The GCTA law slashes jail time for convicted prisoners if they exhibit good behavior while in detention.
Roque further questioned the applicability of the GCTA, considering that Pemberton was detained at Camp Aguinaldo — pursuant to provisions of the Visiting Forces Agreement, and “guarded by U.S. guards.”
“Why should they be entitled to a privilege bestowed on anyone by the state, when the state really has limited role in seeing to it that you have reformed your ways while in detention?” he said.
He also denied the claim of Pemberton’s lawyer Atty. Rowena Flores that he was present in a 2017 meeting at the House of Representatives, wherein Laude’s mother, Julita Cabillan, had agreed to release Pemberton on parole.
“If we agreed, why is it that Pemberton is only being released now — three years after allegedly we agreed?” Roque said, calling Flores’s claim “a blatant lie.” He added that he considers filing a disciplinary action against the lawyer.
In 2015, the Court of Appeals initially sentenced Pemberton to up to 12 years of imprisonment for killing Laude in October 2014, upon learning that she is a transgender. Laude was found dead in an Olongapo City motel room after a night out with Pemberton — her neck blackened with strangulation marks, her head rammed into a toilet.
The U.S. Marine’s sentence was later reduced to a maximum of 10 years.
According to the Olongapo court, Pemberton is now entitled to be released as he already served over five years and ten months in prison, while his GCTA credits amount to over four years and two months, yielding an accumulated jail time of 10 years.
Several lawmakers and human rights groups have denounced the decision, with a number of groups also pointing out that the GCTA remains suspended, raising questions why it has been applied in the first place. The temporary suspension has been ordered by the Justice Department in August 2019, after the controversial possible release of convicted rapist and murderer Antonio Sanchez hounded the law.
