Ex-Iloilo mayor urged: Sue Digong for illegal drug tag

Former Iloilo City Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog has been urged to file charges against former president Rodrigo Duterte for implicating him in the illegal drug trade, prompting him to depart the country and go into a seven-year hiding. 

Mabilog returned to the country on 10 September after seeking asylum in the United States. He left the country in 2017 following his inclusion on Duterte’s narco list. 

The erstwhile mayor told lawmakers that he made “several attempts” to see Duterte as to what the grounds for his inclusion in his drug watch list but it did not succeed. 

“I do believe you that as a Christian, we owe to forgive. Yet I still believe that we have laws in this land so that any crime committed should be paid for,” Manila Rep. Bienvenido Abante Jr. told Mabilog during the House quad committee inquiry into the Duterte administration’s anti-drug war.

“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 being a private citizen now,” Abante added. 

Mabilog, who testified before the quad comm on Thursday, admitted that he had considered filing raps against Duterte at the height of the war on drugs. It did not proposer, however, as Duterte enjoyed presidential immunity at the time. 

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

During his brief appearance in the inquiry, Mabilog told lawmakers that he was not in any way involved in illegal drugs and that his inclusion in the Malacanang-initiated drug watch list was purely politically motivated. 

“It could have happened, your honor, that it could have been politics that has made the former president put my name in that Malacanang-initiated list,” Mabilog said. 

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

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

Political vendetta 

Mabilog is certain that Duterte’s tirades stemmed from his failure to endorse his 2016 presidential candidacy in Iloilo City, where the majority voted for his then-rival Mar Roxas.

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

The former mayor also accused the Duterte administration of using its upper hand not only on drug syndicates but also to eliminate political rivals.

In 2017, during his business trip in Japan, Mabilog said he was invited by then-Philippine National Police chief Ronald “Bato” de la Rosa to Camp Crame with the assurance of helping him clear his name. But, a call from another police general revealed otherwise.

Citing the unnamed police general, Mabilog lamented that De la Rosa’s invitation turned out to be a setup, where he would be forced “to point fingers to an opposition senator and a former presidential candidate as drug lords.” 

Unknown men were also surrounding their home, prepared to kill him should he come to Camp Crame.

In the same year, then-senator Franklin Drilon—Mabilog’s second cousin—and Roxas were being implicated in the illegal drug trade in the Visayas.

Mabilog burst into tears as he detailed the terror experiences.

Surigao del Sur Rep. Johnny Pimentel is keen that Mabilog was only a “victim of unfounded baseless accusations” of Duterte’s drug war, which prompted him to flee the country and go into exile.