Jed Patrick Mabilog, the former Iloilo City mayor who spent seven years in the United States after being publicly accused by Rodrigo Duterte of protecting illegal drug operations, has been given a senior post in the national government.
Palace Press Officer Claire Castro announced Wednesday, May 13, that Mabilog had been appointed undersecretary at the Department of the Interior and Local Government, where he will oversee public safety. He took his oath that morning before Executive Secretary Ralph Recto and DILG Secretary Jonvic Remulla.
The appointment places him within the very department that supervises the Philippine National Police — the same force that waged Duterte’s anti-drug campaign during the years Mabilog was abroad.
Duterte had first named Mabilog in his so-called “narco-list” in 2016. Mabilog denied the accusations. He left for an overseas conference in August 2017 and did not come back. By 2018, when the Ombudsman removed him from office, he and his family had already filed for asylum in the US.
He was out of the country for the remainder of Duterte’s term. The Court of Appeals, in 2021, dismissed the unexplained wealth complaint that had been the basis for his removal from office.
Mabilog returned to the Philippines on September 20, 2024 — his 59th birthday — and surrendered to the National Bureau of Investigation the next day to face graft charges linked to a towing services contract the Iloilo City government awarded in 2015. He posted bail and was out within 24 hours.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. granted him executive clemency in January 2025, removing the legal disqualification under the Local Government Code that would have barred him from public office.
Mabilog sat out the May 2025 midterm elections. His first formal role since returning was as special adviser to then-House Speaker Martin Romualdez, a designation announced on May 1, 2025.
