Natural born felons?

A common observation during the 14-hour House inquiry on the drug trade in the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) the other day was that convict Jaybee Sebastian was much more impressive than a number of the lawmakers who grilled him.

Leyte Rep. Vicente Veloso, deputy chairman of the House committee on justice, was a notable disaster but persisted in needling the convict.

Sebastian was as self-confident, articulate, chillingly polite and menacing before congressmen as in his starring role in the Discovery Channel feature on the NBP that was aired some time ago. In that TV feature, Sebastian spoke in fluent English and toured the Caucasian journalist around his prison “office” and quarters, like a king showing off his realm, complete with subjects or flunkies at his beck and call.

While I thought he lied in some issues (although he’s one persuasive liar), Sebastian appeared to have so impressed the House committee that congressmen asked him for suggestions on what could be done to curb the drug trade at the national penitentiary. He asked: short term or long term? Not that he would be an avid reformer; he’s made at least P30 million so far, he estimated, from drug deals and other illegal activities in the NBP, so why would he want to kill his goose with the golden eggs?

For the short term, he said, cell phones must be banned. Long term? Better prison facilities must be built and conditions improved, so inmates need not have to fend for themselves, raising funds by engaging in criminal activities such as drug trafficking.

At the end of Sebastian’s testimony over 13 grueling hours during which he declined to take a lunch break, Veloso finally gave up and stopped the needling. The congressman then made a comment that must have been shared by many people who followed the hearing. “Magpakabait ka (Be good),” he told Jaybee. “Sayang ka (You’re a waste).”

Watching Sebastian think faster and talk better than many of the “honorable” congressmen grilling him, you do feel the waste – and wonder how many other promising Filipino youths have been led to a life of crime, and why.

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Sebastian is 36 years old, which makes him just 21 when he and several armed cohorts kidnapped Binondo businessman Elmer Chan and companion Rolando Estrella on July 3, 2001 in Sta. Cruz, Manila. Taking Chan’s Nissan Cefiro, the kidnappers brought the victims to a safe house in San Simon, Pampanga. But the two managed to escape and seek help from the National Bureau of Investigation. The NBI tracked down the kidnappers but caught only two, one of them Sebastian.

In 2009, when he was not yet 30, Sebastian was sentenced to two life terms for the ransom kidnapping and another 17 to 20 years for taking the Cefiro. So he has spent nearly half of his life in jails, going to the NBP after his conviction, where he soon set himself up as the alpha inmate at the maximum security facility.

Prison life has clearly toughened him up. Despite the polite language, it was unnerving to hear Sebastian warn – when asked if he was afraid to be killed by other inmates whom he initially didn’t want to identify on national TV – that he was in fact afraid he would kill them. The ensuing nervous laughter from the “honorable” ranks indicated they believed him to be completely capable of carrying out the threat.

At that point, someone couldn’t help piping up that Sebastian would find a kindred spirit in President Duterte. But unlike Sebastian, the Davao City youth who was happy to earn grades in the barely passing 70s range finished law school to pursue his dream of becoming a prosecutor. Sebastian said he dropped out after his junior year in Customs administration – an uncommon career choice, but which may account for his managerial and business skills.

Those skills could have been put to better use, contributing to national productivity. What makes a young man opt for a life of crime? One possible reason, as Sebastian told Discovery Channel, is that he followed in the footsteps of his “badass” father, who is also a felon. Duterte’s beloved mother was a teacher and his father served as Davao governor.

Which makes you wonder: are criminals born or made? Are there natural born killers, natural born kidnappers and carjackers, or are they victims of circumstances? Are there people like cinema’s fictional cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter who are beyond redemption?

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These questions are worth asking in this season of Oplan Tokhang, when the government is applying the Pinoy version of the final solution to curb the drug menace.

The questions are being asked especially because this is a predominantly Christian nation, where only a year ago people lined the streets for several hours just to catch a glimpse of visiting Pope Francis.

Redemption, which entails giving people a second chance, is a basic component of the Christian faith. Giving people a second chance is important particularly in confronting a problem as complex as drug abuse.

President Duterte has professed to believe in God, but he behaves more like an agnostic or a freethinker. And it looks like his idea of giving drug personalities a chance at redemption is by sending them directly to their maker.

The idea of extermination springs from the belief that drug offenders are incapable of changing for the better and should simply be permanently eliminated – especially with our weak criminal justice system.

How long the majority of Filipinos will take the continuing killings for granted will provide a revealing insight into the national character. During the Holocaust, the indifference of ordinary people to the Nazi slaughter of Jews led to Hannah Arendt’s observation on the “banality of evil.”

In Latin America, certain countries that have suffered from narco violence are considering legalization of marijuana and other drugs, dumping the problem of curbing the supply on the biggest market for cocaine, Uncle Sam. Even the US has legalized medical marijuana, with moves on for wider legal acceptance of recreational marijuana use.

Can someone like Jaybee Sebastian abandon a life of crime? At the House hearing, there was one particularly memorable exchange between a congressman and one witness. Told that drugs peddled by NBP inmates mostly came from China, the congressman remarked that the Chinese producers were lucky to be alive, while here we are, Filipinos killing each other.