By Herbert Vego
IT was a jubilant homecoming for former Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog on his 59th birthday last Friday (Sept. 20) when he set foot at the Iloilo City Hall after seven years of absence. There he was, celebrating it with incumbent Mayor Jerry Treñas and city employees.
But it was also the day when Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, in an audience with the Manila media, referred to his Sept. 19 testimony before the House “quad” committee as a “demolition job para masira kami lahat at hihina si VP Sara sa 2028.”
Was he insinuating that Vice-President Sara Duterte had indeed the ambition to run for President in 2028?
Mabilog has become talk of the nation in the wake of that House probe, where he indirectly linked former Pres. Rodrigo Duterte to a plot to incriminate former senators Mar Roxas and Franklin Drilon as “protectors” of unnamed illegal drug lords.
OMG, Roxas and Drilon might have feared spending time in jail a la Sen. Leila de Lima on trumped-up charges!
“Indirectly,” I said, because Mabilog did not name names. It was Abang Lingkod Party-list Rep. Joseph Stephen Paduano who had prompted the former mayor to say “yes” to his naming the names of two former senators.
Probably, had Mabilog not flown out of the country for a speaking engagement in Japan on August 30, 2017, he could have been asked to link Roxas and Drilon to illegal drug trade in Iloilo City.
Otherwise, he himself could have been “neutralized” because his name was in Duterte’s list of “protectors of drug lords.”
In his House testimony, Mabilog alluded to a general and a colonel’s wife who had warned him against going to Camp Crame to clear his name.
“Do not proceed,” the colonel’s wife had texted him. “There are 20 men surrounding your house. If you go to Camp Crame, they will kill you.”
Earlier, Dela Rosa had appeased Mabilog on the telephone, promising to mollify the angry Duterte.
But Bato had also been echoing Duterte’s reference to Iloilo as “the most shabulized city.”
Anyway, how could Mabilog believe in Bato’s sincerity, knowing that Duterte had threatened him, “You’re next”?
Next to whom?
Let us recall that on August 29, 2016, suspected Ilonggo drug lord Melvin Odicta and his wife Miriam were shot dead while disembarking from a ship at the Caticlan Jetty Port in Malay, Aklan.
On October 28, 2016, an alleged drug lord, Mayor Samsudin Dimaukom of Datu Saudi Ampatuan, Maguindanao, was killed by police operatives in Makilala, North Cotabato
Rolando Espinosa Sr, the mayor of Albuera, Leyte who was also being linked to the drug trade, was killed on November 5, 2016 inside his jail by raiding personnel from the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG).
At dawn of Sunday, July 30, 2017, Ozamiz City Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog, his wife, two siblings, and 11 other people were gunned down in their house, also by police operatives.
On September 28, 2018, while Mabilog was patiently waiting for the United States government to approve his application for asylum, another bad news resonated: The legal counsel of the slain Melvin Odicta, Edeljulio Romero, was shot dead at the Culasi Port in Roxas City, Capiz
Could the above-said unsolved killings have convinced the US government to grant Mabilog’s request for asylum 15 months after he had left the Philippines?
Ewan ko. But the aforesaid circumstances could not be shrugged off.
-oOo-
JOY TO CITY HALL
OUR friend Joy Fantilaga has vacated her post as strategic communications officer of MORE Electric and Power Corp (MORE Power). We wish her more power in her new job as spokesperson of Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas.
So, who’s going to replace her at MORE Power?
I don’t know yet. But the last time I viewed the radio/video program “MORE Power at Your Service,” two charming lady anchors were doing as well, namely Bea Melliza and Glimmer Hope Deslate.
Good luck to these empowered ladies!
