A lawmaker yesterday urged former Iloilo City Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog to file charges against former President Rodrigo Duterte for implicating him in the illegal drug trade during his administration, which prompted Mabilog to go into hiding for seven years.

Mabilog returned to the country on 10 September after living in asylum in the United States. He left the Philippines in 2017 following his inclusion in Duterte’s list of alleged narcotics traders and coddlers.

During the House of Representatives Quad Committee’s continuation of its probe into the so-called “drug war” waged by the Duterte administration, Manila Rep. Bienvenido Abante Jr. urged Mabilog to seek justice.

Abante made the proposal after the erstwhile mayor told the lawmakers he had made several attempts without any luck to see Duterte to ask why he was included in the drug list.

“I do believe you that as a Christian, we ought to forgive. Yet, I still believe that we have laws in this land so that any crime committed should be paid for,” Abante told Mabilog.

“Because, Mr. Chair, more than seven years he left the country, and he was emotionally disturbed and very much depressed. So I would like to suggest that he should file a case against the former president who is a private citizen now,” Abante said.

Mabilog admitted that he had considered filing charges against Duterte at the height of the war on drugs. This did not prosper, however, as Duterte enjoyed presidential immunity at the time.

Under Philippine law, the President is immune from suit and cannot be investigated for any criminal offense while he is in office.

Political vendetta?

Mabilog told the panel that he was not in any way involved in illegal drugs and that his inclusion in the drug watch list was politically motivated. “It could have happened, your honor, it could have been politics that made the former president put my name in that Malacañang-initiated list,” Mabilog said.

In 2017, barely a year after Mabilog finished his last term as mayor, then president Duterte announced on television that Mabilog would be the “next” target of his bloody anti-drug campaign.

Duterte accused Mabilog of being the “number one” coddler of drug syndicates in the country, branding Iloilo as the “most shabu-lized” city.

Mabilog was certain Duterte’s tirade stemmed from his failure to endorse his 2016 presidential candidacy in Iloilo City, where the majority voted for his rival Mar Roxas.

“The result of that election, your honor, was President Rodrigo Duterte got only 13.7 percent of the total number of votes cast in Iloilo City, which was his lowest percentage of votes,” Mabilog said.

The former mayor also accused the Duterte administration of using the drug scare to eliminate political rivals.

In 2017, during a business trip to Japan, Mabilog said he was invited by then Philippine National Police chief Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa to Camp Crame with the assurance that the latter would help him clear his name.

Citing an unnamed police general, Mabilog said he was told that Dela Rosa’s invitation was a setup, that he would be forced “to point fingers at an opposition senator and a former presidential candidate as drug lords.”

Unknown men also surrounded his home, ready to kill him should he go to Camp Crame, he claimed.