In a lame effort to explain why she was spending hours alone with “drug lord” Jaybee Sebastian in his luxurious “kubol” in the New Bilibid Prison (NBP), Sen. Leila de Lima said Sebastian was an “asset” helping the government end illegal drug trafficking (“Leila: Jaybee was my asset,” News, 9/23/16). Why she preferred to be alone with him despite being with high-profile government officials accompanying her to the NBP, she did not bother to explain.
And what has that “asset” done to help end illegal drug trafficking in the NBP? Up to the time De Lima was replaced as justice secretary by the Duterte administration, such trafficking continued unabated. What was evident from the “special treatment” De Lima gave Sebastian was the elimination of his rivals and his absolute hold of the drug trade in the NBP.
Unaware then of the scandalous things happening during her term as justice secretary, I voted wholeheartedly for De Lima in her senatorial bid. Now I’m starting to regret it. To me, she has not come clean, not by a long shot. Merely babbling that those very nasty testimonies in the justice committee of the House of Representatives were perjurious just doesn’t cut it.
—ANGELI O. MARCONI, angzheli5555@gmail.com