Detained Senator Leila de Lima on Friday expressed the belief that the circumstances surrounding the death of high-profile inmate Jaybee Sebastian are suspicious since his own wife is also doubtful about it.
(MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO)
De Lima pointed out news reports have shown that the wife of Sebastian—a witness in the drug case that was filed against her by the government—went hysterical upon learning of her husband’s death.
The rather unusual reaction of Sebastian’s wife, de Lima said “speaks volumes of the dubious circumstances surrounding it.”
“The rather unusual reaction of Sebastian’s wife, which included threats to kill all the NBP officials and personnel responsible for Sebastian’s death, speaks volume of the dubious circumstances surrounding it. Sebastian’s wife must know something about these dubious circumstances to go hysterical and threaten to kill the NBP people,” de Lima said in her latest statement.
“I am also sure she knows a lot about the intense pressure exerted on Sebastian and his family to falsely testify against me during the House Justice Committee hearings on the Bilibid Drug Trade in September and October 2016,” the senator added.
De Lima recalled Sebastian refused to falsely testify before the House Committee until he was stabbed and was almost killed inside the New Bilibid Prison’s (NBP) Building 14 on September 28, 2016.
A few days later, De Lima said Sebastian was brought to the House of Representatives with his stab wounds still fresh, to falsely testify against me.
“Needless to say, Sebastian’s death means one less perjured witness against me,” she said.
However, the latest development also means one less witness against President Duterte, ex-justice secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II, Solicitor General Jose Calida, chief public attorney Persida Acosta, and other staunch critics whom she said conspired to tap NBP inmates to implicate her and send her to prison over alleged drug trafficking activities inside the national penitentiary.
“I need all these witnesses to stay alive, and not to die in prison one by one, so that in the near future they can eventually tell the whole truth about how Duterte and his sycophantic minions connived to set me up and get rid of me,” de Lima said.
“On the part of Sebastian, his side of the truth on this conspiracy is now buried with him, except for his sworn statement that Jose Calida and Sandra Cam were the ones who approached him and promised to transfer him back to his ‘kubol’ inside the Maximum Security Compound if he cooperated with them to testify against me,” she said.
“He did testify, falsely, in the House hearings, but only after that near-fatal stabbing incident. He was yet to testify in the court cases,” the senator added.
De Lima said Sebastian’s widow and all the other witnesses who were tapped by the administration against her should finally open up and speak the truth.
“My advice to Sebastian’s widow and the remaining false witnesses against me—tell all that you know,” De Lima appealed.
“I have always believed that, under any and all circumstances, telling the truth is one’s best protection,” she reiterated.