ILOILO City – Did Jeffrey Celiz, former spokesperson of then mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog, have something to do with his former boss’ inclusion in the narco-list of President Rodrigo Duterte?
In yesterday’s Senate inquiry on red-tagging/red-baiting of certain celebrities, personalities, institutions and organizations, Celiz appeared as a resource person for the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF–ELCAC).
But vetting his credibility, Senate President Vicente Sotto III and Sen. Panfilo Lacson asked Celiz about his inclusion in the narco-list of the President in 2016. Mabilog was also in that list.
Celiz said his inclusion in the list was part of his work as a covert agent of the government.
“I was included in that list because I was part of the government project para lansagin ang sindikato ng droga sa Iloilo,” said Celiz.
In Aug. 7, 2016, the President linked Mabilog to drug trafficking as a protector and described Iloilo City as “most shabulized.”
The President also linked other local personalities to illegal drugs, one of them was one of Mabilog’s trusted aides, Celiz. The President erroneously identified him as a “congressman, partylist, Panay chapter.”
Celiz was a former activist who led cause-oriented group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan – Panay between 2000 and 2004. He eventually left the group.
In 2010 he worked as political strategist of then Vice Mayor Mabilog who was running for mayor of Iloilo City in May of that year.
From July 2010 until February 2016, Celiz worked at city hall as spokesperson and executive assistant of Mabilog.
In Aug. 29, 2016, three weeks after the President bared his narco-list, suspected drug lord Melvin Odicta Sr. and wife Meriam were shot to death by unidentified armed men at the jetty port in Caticlan, Malay, Aklan.
In Aug. 31, 2017, a year after he was linked to illegal drugs, Mabilog, fearing for his life, left the country with his family. They were believed to have flown to Canada.
Mabilog had been insisting he had nothing to do with illegal drugs.
“These are trying times,” he said hours after President Duterte linked him to illegal drugs in August 2016.
“I can categorically say that I am not involved in the protection, trade and use of illegal drugs,” said Mabilog in a hastily called press conference.
He stressed he was supportive of the President’s campaign against illegal drugs.
“I fully understand his determination to defeat the menace. It is very unfortunate and disconcerting that my name is linked and included in the list,” said Mabilog.
The mayor said he was “willing to open myself for any investigation, cooperate and submit myself to any court of law.”
After naming Mabilog and other mayors in his list, Duterte pulled out their military and police escorts and ordered them to return to their mother units.
Celiz, meanwhile, disappeared after the President linked him to illegal drugs.
Last week, he surfaced after activist Lean Porquia, son of slain Ilonggo activist Jory Porquia, “outed” him on Facebook as the “Ka Eric Almendras” who supported the claim of Major General Antonio Parlade Jr., chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ Southern Luzon Command, that a sister of actress Angel Locsin, Angela “Ella” Colmenares, was an NPA rebel.
Celiz also tagged as communist fronts several party-list groups.
In the Senate inquiry yesterday, he again asserted, “General Parlade is not lying. Ella Colmenares, the sister of Angel Locsin, was an NPA in Quezon, na-meet ko siya.”
“Si Ella Colmenares, umalis ‘yan ‘di na siya mapipigilan so bumalik siya sa open mass movement pero CPP pa rin siya, she’s operating underground at alam ko nasa MAKIBAKA (Malayang Kilusan ng Bagong Kababaihan) siya sa Gabriela,” Celiz added.
Colmenares had earlier already denied Parlade’s claims that she was a member of the NPA, insisting that she was supportive of women’s rights and not the armed struggle.
Celiz said his working now as government consultant for peace and security is his way of atoning for the years he spent unground trying to topple the government.
But not everyone is impressed like former Iloilo City councilor Plaridel Nava – a critic of Mabilog – who had crossed swords with him at city hall several times.
On Facebook, Nava posted: “I have known Celiz for years. He is gifted in drawing untruthful stories to discredit either his own or his handlers’ enemies.”
“At the behest of his boss Jed Mabilog, Celiz was responsible for writing and propagating the so-called ‘white paper’ that maliciously implicated me and some anchormen of Aksyon Radyo in the drug trade in the city. That’s how insane he is,” according to Nava.
Nava theorized that Celiz is clutching at straws to survive after the latter was linked by no less than the President himself to illegal drugs.
“I am no longer surprised of his involvement in the government’s ‘red-tagging’. He has become a loose cannon and a deserter after he was tagged by Duterte as part of the narco-lists. He will do everything to survive,” according to Nava, implying that Celiz has no other choice but do what his supposed handlers are telling him to do, or his life would be in peril.
The former council said that for four years, Celiz “kept in hiding because he knows that the (anti-drug) death squad has been hunting him.”/PN
