SPEAKER Pantaleon Alvarez on Thursday contradicted the chairman of the House committee on justice, saying they would respect the decision of Jaybee Sebastian, who allegedly collected drug money for Senator Leila de Lima at the national penitentiary when she was still Justice secretary, not to testify before a congressional inquiry.
Earlier, House committee on justice chairman Rep. Reynaldo Umali of Negros Oriental said Sebastian could not refuse to attend the ongoing hearings of his panel.
But Alvarez said the Umali panel had done enough to find the truth, and said House leaders would respect Sebastian’s decision not to testify after he was stabbed in a prison riot.
Alvarez said the House will not compel Sebastian’s attendance in the hearings.
“It is his right to remain silent. We are not going to force him to testify,” Alvarez said, noting that the testimony of eight witnesses who appeared before Umali’s panel had given them enough to draft a law to improve the penal system.
Sebastian has expressed a willingness to reveal all he knows about the illegal drug trade inside the New Bilibid Prison, but said he would do so only with President Rodrigo Duterte.
But Umali insisted that Sebastian cannot ignore a subpoena to appear.
“That is not his call, that is Congress’ call. He cannot avoid us,” Umali said.
Umali said the House justice panel would exercise its “coercive powers” to compel Sebastian’s attendance in the House probe.
“But we will not prohibit him from saying what he wants to tell the President. When we call him he must show up and respect the Institution called Congress. We will arrest him again [if he insists on not attending],” Umali said.
Isabela Rep. Rodolfo Albano III and Parañaque Rep. Gus Tambunting agreed with Umali.
Albano said Sebastian’s decision to tell all to the President was “dangerous.”
“What if he lies to the President?” Albano said, “The President has much to lose.”
Earlier, Sebastian’s lawyer, Eduardo Arriba, said the inmate would cooperate with the investigation on the condition that he would speak only to the President.
“He said he has a lot of knowledge about the drug trade inside and outside the NBP. He initially refused to talk simply because of fear for his life,” he added.
According to the lawyer, Sebastian, whom Senator Leila de Lima earlier tagged as a government asset, has decided to cooperate with the government, believing that the stabbing incident could be related to the ongoing investigation on the illegal drug trade.
“What happened to me is what I’ve been always fearing,” Arriba said, quoting his client during his visit at the hospital.
“He said he wanted to speak directly to the President because he is now exposed to danger,” the lawyer said.
Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II said earlier this week that Sebastian, a convicted bank robber, would no longer be presented before the Umali panel after the inmate refused to testify on the NBP drug trade.
In earlier House hearings, other high-profile inmates led by Herbert Colanggo accused Sebastian of raising funds from the illegal drug trade in the national penitentiary to support the senatorial campaign of former Justice secretary and now Senator De Lima.