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BY HERBERT VEGO
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Sunday, January 29, 2017
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LONG before the accession to power of President Duterte and his consequential “war on drugs” that shamed politicians named as “protectors” of drug lords, this column had objected to Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog’s notion that illegal drug trade was “not alarming in Iloilo City.”
But I never jumped to the conclusion that the mayor was receiving payola from the rumored drug lords in exchange for hearing no evil, seeing no evil and saying no evil. While there were pictures showing him in the company of a rumored drug lord, they were only worth a grain of salt. Anybody could pose with a politician, but drug lords tend to shy away from the camera.
In fact, there was a time when I begged of a photographer to lend me a stolen shot of the late Melvin “Boyet” Odicta that he had showed me.
“No way,” he shrugged off my request. “If you publish it, you could put me in harm’s way.”
The only time Odicta unwittingly revealed himself before a CCTV camera was when he and his henchmen attempted to barge into radio station DyOK, whose broadcasters had been hinting that he was the drug lord “Dragon.”
Going back to Mayor Jed, how could “Duterte’s list” pin him down as Dragon conduit?
That no case has been filed against any of the listed Iloilo mayors – including Mar Malones of Maasin and Alex Centena of Calinog – is an indicator that there exists no evidence that could outweigh presumption of innocence.
That they won the posts they had run for indicate disbelief of their constituents in allegations linking them to shabu proliferation.
As a journalist and resident of Iloilo City, I have been filing drug-related stories. While there is none that could establish Mabilog’s linkage with any drug supplier, there are those that supported his anti-drug drive.
I remember that in the wake of his re-election as mayor in 2013, Mabilog met with the late ex-officio councilor Carlos Guarin, president of the city’s Association of Barangay Captains, to forge ways and means to activate the Barangay Anti-Drug Abuse Councils (BADAC). This would compel barangay captains to identify suspected drug dealers and pushers in every barangay to identify and report to the police or Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) operatives “drug-affected house clusters, work places, streets, puroks, and sitios where delivery, sale or use of illegal drugs are conducted” in compliance with the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 or Republic Act No. 9165.
In coordination with PDEA, Mabilog organized an orientation-seminar for the barangay captains of Iloilo City. Of the 180 “kapitanes,” 174 showed up and inked a covenant to support the mayor’s crusade against illegal drugs.
If it was not as successful as expected, it was because certain barangays turned out to be “seriously affected” by the illegal drug trade, notably Bakhaw and Tanza Esperanza, where the barangay captains were sister and brother of the of the respective drug lords.
While the mayor did not publicly chastise the barangay captains, he did it through Guarin, who would eventually succumb to heart attack.
Nonetheless, sometime in 2015 (if my memory serves me right), the PDEA recognized the efforts of the mayor. Then PDEA director general Arturo Cacdac, Jr. came to Iloilo City to personally recognize Mabilog with a plaque of recognition for unspecified acts leading to apprehension of drug pushers and rehabilitation of users.
It was also around that time that then PDEA regional director Paul Ledesma named Odicta and Richard Prevendido as the biggest drug lords in the city.
Was it the mayor’s fault that PDEA and the police did not go beyond naming names?
A bigger Ilonggo politician excused himself, saying he could not meddle in “police work.”
Whether Mabilog committed a “sin of omission” is beyond this columnist’s judgment. What I know for sure is that he has done nothing to deserve inclusion in Duterte’s list./PN
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