De Lima urges Jaybee Sebastian's widow, other ‘false witnesses’ to tell all: ‘May panahon pa’

Senator Leila De Lima on Friday urged the widow of New Bilibid Prison inmate Jaybee Sebastian to divulge everything she knows about the intense pressure that the latter allegedly experienced under the Duterte administration.

The detained opposition senator claimed that Sebastian had been reluctant to testify against her but was compelled to implicate her in illegal drug trade after almost being killed inside Building 14 of Bilibid in September 2016.

Sebastian was among the nine high-profile Bilibid inmates who allegedly succumbed to COVID-19 recently.

"My advice to Sebastian’s widow and the remaining false witnesses against me – tell all that you know. I have always believed that, under any and all circumstances, telling the truth is one’s best protection," De Lima said in a statement.

"Sa mga tumestigo na ang buong akala ay paninindigan ni Duterte ang mga pangako sa kanila: Tingin ba ninyo hahayaan lang kayong buhay ni Duterte na dala-dala ang sikretong nalalaman ninyo na puwedeng gamitin laban sa kanya? Mag-isip uli kayo. May panahon pa," she added.

Recognizing that Sebastian's demise means one less false witness against her, De Lima said the same also holds true for President Rodrigo Duterte and his allies who allegedly plotted the trumped-up drug charges against her.

"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," she said.

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra, on the other hand, said Sebastian's death would not significantly affect the prosecution of De Lima.

"Jaybee Sebastian is only one in an array of witnesses against Senator De Lima," Guevarra said.

"His loss does not affect in any significant manner the overall strategy of the prosecution in the pending criminal cases," he added.

In a 2016 House hearing, Sebastian accused De Lima of being a protector of illegal drug operations at the national penitentiary. —LDF, GMA News