SC orders road rage killer Rolito Go freed

Rolito Go. Inquirer file photo

The Supreme Court has ordered the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) on Friday to immediately  release murder convict Rolito Go, who has served 20 years and 8 months in prison for the road rage killing of De la Salle University student Eldon Maguan in 1991.

The high court denied the petition of BuCor Director General Ricardo Rainier G. Cruz III and New Bilibid Prison (NBP) officials Richard Schwarzkopf and Emerencian M. Divina to reverse a 2014 court ruling that upheld Go’s claim that he had fully served his sentence after he was transferred to the Ihawig Prison and Penal Farm in Palawan,  automatically commuting his sentence from life imprisonment to 30 years.

The high court division clerk  of court, Wilfredo V. Lapitan, sent the order on Friday based on the Nov. 28 decision of the Third Division led by Associate Justice Presbitero J. Velasco.

“This resolution is immediately executory. The Director of the the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) is ordered to immediately release petitioner Rolito T. Go from detention unless he is detained for any lawful cause,” Lapitan said.

Go, who was detained in the NBP maximum security compound, was joined by his wife, Elsa Ang Go, in his petition. Go’s legal team is led by Estelito P. Mendoza.

Road rage

The release order culminates Go’s road rage killing saga, which began from a simple road altercation in Greenhills, San Juan, 25 years ago when he shot in the head Maguan, then 25.

The construction magnate had stormed out of dinner following a fight with his girlfriend, and then drove against one-way traffic on Wilson Street, where his vehicle nearly collided with Maguan’s. An altercation followed, which eventually led to Go shooting Maguan.

He escaped from jail four days before the court was to hand down its decision in 1993.  He was caught three years later at a pig farm.

In 2011, he confirmed to the Inquirer that he was suffering from colon cancer, and appealed for parole on humanitarian grounds.

The BuCor officials had asked the Supreme Court to reverse the April 28, 2014, decision of the Regional Trial Court Branch 204 in Muntinlupa, which granted  Go’s appeal for the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus and his release from prison as early as 2013.  BuCor claimed that under the Constitution, only the President had the power to grant pardon.

The Third Division, however, agreed with the Muntilupa RTC’s findings. The Third Division members are Associate Justices Lucas P. Bersamin and Francis H. Jardeleza, who inhibited from the case as he was a solicitor general in the previous administration.

Go’s main argument was that his original prison sentence scheduled to end on Jan 21, 2022, should have expired on Jan. 31, 2013, based on his computation citing deduction of lawful and proper allowances for colonist status, good conduct  and preventive imprisonment under RA No. 2849, which gave special compensation and modification of sentence to reward prisoners for their good conduct and workmanship. -Gil C. Cabacungan