Noy gives clemency to dead man

MANILA, Philippines - For a cancer-stricken convict at the national penitentiary, executive clemency came four days too late.

Convicted kidnapper Mariano Umbrero died before he could breathe the air of freedom.

Malacañang yesterday admitted a lapse in its grant of conditional pardon to Umbrero, who was to have been the first beneficiary of presidential clemency under the Aquino administration.

President Aquino signed his release papers on July 19, by which time the prisoner was already four days dead.

“First of all, we would like to extend our deepest condolences to the bereaved family. And we find it deeply unfortunate that there was a supervening event,” deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said yesterday.

“We will try to find out what happened. There was no information given to us regarding his demise,” she said, but gave assurance that there will not be a repeat of the incident.

“Right now we are studying closer coordination in cases such as this. We hope that the clemency given, even if it comes after the person’s death, will somehow lessen the pain of those he left behind,” she said.

Umbrero – who was terminally ill - was to have been the first convict Aquino freed, albeit on a conditional pardon, but death overtook him after his cancer had progressed from stage two to stage four.

As a matter of tradition, all Presidents release around 100 inmates every Christmas, but Aquino did not do so in December 2010. Aquino’s hand was nevertheless forced this month upon the prodding of Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, who cited Umbrero’s terminal disease.

Aquino revealed Wednesday he freed Umbrero even if he only served eight years of the life term – equivalent to 40 years – he ought to comply with.

In a chance interview, he said he authorized Umbrero – a suspected communist – to be released from the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City, upon the recommendation of De Lima and the Bureau of Pardons and Parole.

“I have already signed his papers. It was either last week or this week. This guy has served – to be honest – out of the reclusion perpetua penalty, around eight years only,” he said.

The President said he also expects that more convicts would be released this coming Christmas, after he ordered the verification of those who really deserve to rejoin the community and would pose no threat to the general public.

Aquino admitted having a hard time releasing convicts, which is usual fare for any sitting President every Christmas, mainly because he is not comfortable with the idea of freeing them by way of “automatic discounts” the moment they step in the penitentiary.

He said the good conduct time allowance accorded to convicts must be done away with, and that he would prefer the justice system in the US, where a person sentenced to life imprisonment would really spend a lifetime behind bars, without any pardon or parole.

He cited the case of the guy who killed Robert Kennedy, Sirhan Sirhan, who remains in jail until now.

“In the US justice system, you will go through the process wherein you will have to explain to their parole board that there is a good reason why you should get back your right to become part of society,” he said.

“More often than not in the US, there is what they call life imprisonment without possibility of parole. In our case, it’s like serving, if at all, just half of the term,” Aquino said.