Dwayne Pelagio

Former Iloilo City Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog revealed an alleged plan to point former senators Mar Roxas and Franklin Drilon to the drug trade during former president Rodrigo Duterte’s term in the House quad-committee hearing on Sept. 19.

Photo Courtesy of INQUIRER.net/Rappler/POLITIKO.

According to Mabilog’s narration, a police general called him on his stay in Japan last 2017, and warned him that he has to link government officials with drug involvements, once he had chosen to go back to the Philippines. 

“Mayor, do not return. Your life is in danger. The accusations against you have already
been fabricated. But, if you go to Crame [Camp Crame], you’ll be forced to point fingers to an opposition senator and a former presidential candidate as drug lords,” the police general stated. 

After his speech, Quad-comm co-chairman, Abang Lingkod Party-list Rep. Joseph Stephen Aduano asked Mabilog to identify the “opposition senator and a former presidential candidate.”

“Can you mention the names? If I ask you, better you answer yes or no. Is it…former senator Mar Roxas? Is it former senator [Franklin] Drilon, who is your cousin?” asked Paduano.

Mabilog answered “Yes,” to both names.

Mabilog explained that when he left the Philippines for Japan in 2017, Police Brig. Gen. Bernardo Diaz advised him to call the mobile number of former Philippine National Police (PNP) Chief Ronaldo “Bato” dela Rosa.

“Using a public payphone, I made the call and spoke to General Bato, who expressed his sympathy. He was speaking to me in Bisaya, he told me he knew that I was innocent. That I wasn’t involved in illegal drugs, and he promised to help me,” said Mabilog, telling that it was a “brief moment of hope” and he wanted to return to the Philippines back then.

The former mayor gave his suspicion to the controversial narco-list of the Duterte Administration, calling it a political move since he has ties to former senator Franklin Drilon, and he was blamed for the campaign ‘brownout’ of Duterte’s Presidential Campaign in Iloilo City.

The former mayor returned home from the Philippines after seven years of political asylum in the US in a goal to clear his name from Duterte’s  allegations, citing that he is a “major drug protector” in his city and including him in the controversial “narco-list”.

It is a list of political figures tagged by the administration as reportedly involved in illegal drug trade and operations.