JB Sebastian was government asset at NBP – De Lima

MANILA, Philippines - The alleged “favored” convict at the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) Jaybee Sebastian is actually a government asset in the campaign against illegal drugs during the Aquino administration, Sen. Leila de Lima said yesterday.

De Lima made the disclosure to counter allegations aired by convicts at the inquiry in the House of Representatives that she protected Sebastian from the various anti-drug raids at the NBP so that he would have sole control of drug operations at the national penitentiary.

One of the witnesses in the House inquiry, former police officer Rodolfo Magleo who was convicted of kidnapping, had testified that De Lima would visit Sebastian’s kubol (hut) at the maximum security compound of the NBP alone for two to three hours.

“The reason I’m saying that he’s a (government) asset is to dispel speculations, the malicious as to why he was not included in the ‘Bilibid 19’ because he was collecting (drug money) for me,” De Lima told reporters.

She was referring to the transfer of 19 convicts running drug operations from the NBP to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in December 2014 following a series of raids when she was secretary of justice.

De Lima said Sebastian was not transferred to the NBI because of fears that he might get killed as some of those among the Bilibid 19 suspected that he was giving information about them.

She said Sebastian should be allowed to testify on the matter but expressed apprehension that the convict may also be pressured to corroborate the testimonies of his fellow convicts.

De Lima also belied insinuations that former president Benigno Aquino III benefitted from drug operations in the NBP as Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II had hinted.

Aguirre said a “yellow member” higher than De Lima benefited from the drug trade in the NBP. Yellow is the color identified with the Liberal Party and the Aquino administration.

“I ask you, who else yellow is higher than me when I was secretary of justice? I was an alter ego of the president and therefore, the only one higher than me is president Aquino himself,” she said.

“Are they saying, is my president also a beneficiary of all of these things? Of course not! You know P-Noy,” she said.

Aguirre also wants Sebastian to face the House inquiry on proliferation of illegal drugs in the NBP.

Aguirre said he asked the House committee on justice, which is conducting the probe, to issue a subpoena to Sebastian for the hearing set next week.

He explained that they have tried to ask Sebastian, whom fellow inmates accused of raising millions of funds from illegal drugs to help finance the campaign of De Lima in the senatorial race last May.

“But he said he would only speak insofar as the anomalies in food supplies in Bilibid, not on the illegal drugs trade. With a subpoena from the House, he would be compelled to appear before the inquiry,” he explained.

Citing affidavits of the inmates, Aguirre said Sebastian started raising funds from drug trafficking as early as 2011 to support the plan of De Lima to run for senator in the 2013 midterm elections.

“Sebastian was already distributing illegal drugs to bosyo (gang leaders) in 2011 and the direction of the drug money was heading towards then secretary De Lima,” he alleged.

Aguirre said the witnesses claimed that Sebastian’s operations only continued in 2013 when De Lima decided to run in the 2016 polls. – With Edu Punay