1 hour ago
3
Upgrade to High-Speed Internet for only ₱1499/month!
Enjoy up to 100 Mbps fiber broadband, perfect for browsing, streaming, and gaming.
Visit Suniway.ph to learn
Former Iloilo City Mayor Jed Mabilog attends the public hearing of the House's quadcom on Sept. 19, 2024.
House of Representatives / Release
MANILA, Philippines — Jed Patrick Mabilog, the former Iloilo mayor who fled into a seven-year exile in the United States after then-President Rodrigo Duterte named him in a "narco-list," has been appointed undersecretary at the Department of the Interior and Local Government.
Palace Press Officer Claire Castro confirmed the appointment to reporters on Wednesday, May 13.
This gives Mabilog a senior post at the same department that supervises the Philippine National Police, notorious under Duterte for having carried out a violent anti-illegal drugs campaign.
Mabilog is in charge of public safety and took his oath on Wednesday morning, May 13, before Executive Secretary Ralph Recto and DILG Secretary Jonvic Remulla.
The former Iloilo City mayor left for an overseas conference in August 2017 and did not return until after the end of the Duterte administration.
Duterte had publicly tagged him as a drug protector in 2016. Mabilog denied the accusations.
By the time the Ombudsman dismissed Mabilog from office in 2018, he and his family had already filed for asylum in the United States.
He returned to the Philippines on Sept. 20, 2024 — his 59th birthday — and surrendered to the National Bureau of Investigation the following day to face graft charges tied to a 2015 towing services contract awarded by the Iloilo City government. He posted bail and was released within 24 hours.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. granted Mabilog executive clemency in January 2025, clearing the legal bar that would have kept him out of public office under the Local Government Code.
The Court of Appeals had earlier, in 2021, dismissed the administrative complaint on unexplained wealth that the Ombudsman used to remove him in the first place.
Mabilog did not seek a return to elected office in the May 2025 midterms.
On May 1, 2025, then-House Speaker Martin Romualdez named him special adviser to the Speaker, his first formal post since coming home.
