CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (MindaNews/10 September) — Two convicts freed under the Good Conduct Time Allowance Law surrendered to authorities in Valencia City, Bukidnon on Monday.
Supt. Surki Sereñas, chief of the Valencia City police, said Larry Canunay, 48, and Elias Berdin, 61, went calmly with the policemen who fetched them in their respective villages last Monday.
Canunay was convicted for rape and arson on March 22, 1991 and have served his sentence for 28 years at the Davao Prison and Penal Farm until he was released last March 22, 2019.
Berdin, on the other hand, was convicted for murder and frustrated murder on August 5, 1993 and have served 26 years in Iwahig Prison and Penal Farm in Palawan until he was released last July 16, 2019.
Sereñas said Canunay and Berdin immediately contacted their barangay officials after knowing that President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the re-arrest of all heinous-crime convicts freed under the law.
“They seemed to be resigned that they are going back to prison life which they have served for half of their lives,” he said.
He said both convicts lamented that their friends no longer stay in their villages or had died while they were in prison.
“They stayed mostly in their houses during the entire time of their release and rarely went out,” he said.
He said the two will be sent back to the prison farms once they received the instructions from higher headquarters. (Froilan Gallardo/MindaNews)
