Rody lets go

See, President Duterte is sensitive to public opinion. In firing his loyal kumpare Nicanor Faeldon from the Bureau of Corrections, Duterte even went one step further: he ordered all convicts freed on good conduct time allowance or GCTA to surrender and report back to BuCor.

The freed convicts have been given 15 days to turn themselves in. After that, they will be considered fugitives who will be hunted down “dead or alive” – and when Duterte says this, you know he means it. Especially when he grouses that he doesn’t want the government to spend more in feeding murderers, rapists, drug traffickers and other felons convicted of heinous offenses.

His core constituency – the 70 to 80+ percent in the surveys who approve of his performance – will likely have no complaints if a number of those who have been freed end up dead… after manlaban or resisting re-arrest, of course.

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What could dampen public approval is if Duterte again recycles Faeldon to another government post. It could even reinforce suspicions, promoted by anti-Duterte quarters, that Faeldon has damaging information on the President and his family that might be unleashed if the sacked BuCor chief is fed to the wolves.

Faeldon was smiling at the Senate yesterday, explaining that he was glad to be relieved of his “yoke” and he could now sleep soundly. Duterte must not disturb that sound sleep again. There are so many other Filipinos qualified to occupy sensitive positions in government, and they aren’t damaged goods.

There are unconfirmed reports that before Duterte stopped the releases, among those on the priority list of GCTA beneficiaries were two of the most notorious drug trafficking convicts – Yu Yuk Lai, a regular “patient” in a hospital in Manila’s Chinatown, and Peter Co.

Recycling Faeldon, deemed an untouchable child of God or anak ng Diyos, could also aggravate Duterte’s defense of his spokesman Salvador Panelo, who wasn’t forthright about being in touch with the family of his former client, ex-Calauan mayor Antonio Sanchez. Panelo met twice with his ex-client’s family at Malacañang (he blamed the laxness of the Presidential Security Group for the allegedly surprise visits). He even used a letterhead of the Office of the President in his “referral” of a request for executive clemency for Sanchez.

Panelo’s way out is that his referral carried little weight and was rejected by the Board of Pardons and Parole.

As for credibility, unfortunately, Panelo is in competition with Sanchez’s partner Elvira (the ex-mayor’s now estranged wife Editha reportedly dumped him for the family driver).

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The Senate should not let the sacking of Faeldon get in the way of efforts to find out who texted Elvira about Sanchez’s looming release.

Elvira should be careful in insisting that Sanchez is innocent. It could revive speculation during his trial, that Mary Eileen Sarmenta was kidnapped in Los Baños by his bodyguards and given as a “gift” not to Sanchez, who was mayor at the time, but allegedly to his son as a bienvenida or welcome following the boy’s return from schooling in London’s Hurtwood House. As of this month, the boarding fee in this school was £14,874 (nearly P1 million) and day fee was £9,916 (about P650,000) per term.

The family, according to the speculation at the time, believed that the mayor would be able to prove his innocence. His principal defense, however, was one of the lamest – an alibi, that he was somewhere else when the crime was committed. At the Senate hearing this week, Elvira claimed Sanchez was with her (he was still living with his wife at the time).

The speculation about the son was never pursued and Sanchez was convicted. His conviction was affirmed with finality by the Supreme Court. If he insists on his innocence – the reason he is showing no remorse and refusing to pay the P12.67 million in civil damages to the families of Sarmenta and Gomez – Sanchez should never be made eligible for any form of executive clemency.

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The refusal to pay the damages is another injustice that Congress may want to correct. Lawyers say there is a 10-year prescriptive period for compliance with a final or executory order to pay civil damages. So all that Sanchez has to do is sit out the prescriptive period, and he’s free of that P12.67-million penalty. As he’s now bound to rot forever in prison, what other punishment can they mete on him if he doesn’t pay?

Elvira declared clearly that they did not intend to pay the damages. Surely it’s not for lack of resources.

Last year the Office of the Ombudsman recovered 19 assets declared to be ill-gotten from Sanchez and his estranged wife Editha. These included a residential property, two 1987 model Mercedes Benzes, a 1991 Dodge Caravan, P246,120 in cash and bank deposits, and shares in a lending company.

Sanchez, an avowed Marian devotee, had a monthly salary of P17,724 as town mayor from 1980 to 1981, P26,388 from 1981 to 1986, and P10,443 from 1988 because Calauan was downgraded to a fifth-class municipality.

Even with Faeldon sacked, people still want to know who texted Elvira about her partner’s likely release. She’s insulting people’s intelligence by insisting that she didn’t know the source of the information and that the phone number was unknown to her.

Obviously, she believed the source of the information to be credible enough for her and Sanchez’s children to begin preparing for his release.

As for those threats, which Elvira claimed prompted her to destroy her cell phone, maybe it was a cheap phone, although she says she kept the pre-paid SIM card. What this tall tale did was to raise the question: who is she covering for?

If ever the whole truth comes out, let’s hope the response of authorities will be as decisive as President Duterte’s action on Faeldon.