By Bohol Island News Staff | 04:00 PM September 5, 2019
Three hours after President Rodrigo Duterte gave a 15-day ultimatum to freed convicts to surrender, a man convicted of eight counts of murder released over good conduct surrendered to police on Wednesday.
According to Police Col. Roderick Mariano, chief of Cebu Provincial Police Office (CPPO), Jesus Ranoco Negro, Jr voluntarily surrendered to Bogo City Police Station on Wednesday night, September 4.
He said he was afraid he might get killed.
Negro, 50, a resident of Barangay Dakit in Bogo City, was jailed in 1998 after he was convicted of 8 counts of murder and frustrated murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison at the Bureau of Corrections at the New Bilibid Prison, Muntinlupa City.
He was released from the National Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City on August 9, 2018, due to the good conduct time allowance (GCTA) law.
According to Mariano, he was the first freed convict to surrender in Cebu after Duterte told them to surrender to authorities.
Meanwhile, the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) has no information yet on the location of Josman Aznar, Ariel Balansag, and Alberto Caño, who were convicted for the 1997 murder of the Chiong sisters.
Cebu City Police Officer Director Col. Gemma Vinluan said they will ask the Bureau of Immigration if the three are still in the country and request a hold departure order.
Thelma Chiong, the mother of rape-murder victims Marijoy and Jacqueline Chiong, told Bohol Island News that the “15 days for heinous crime convicts to surrender is too long.”
Duterte has ordered the 1,914 heinous crimes convicts freed over the years of implementation of the law cutting down their prison time due to their good conduct to surrender to authorities.
Duterte told the freed convicts to “surrender and have yourself registered in [the Bureau of Corrections] in 15 days.”
The president said they are given 15 days of liberty provided that they make themselves available for recomputation of their GCTA and for investigation for corruption, or else they would be treated as fugitive.
According to data of the Bureau of Corrections, there have been more than 22,000 persons deprived of liberty whose GCTA were granted and whose sentences were shortened.
Of these, 1,914 inmates were sent to imprisonment for committing heinous crime.
