BY MA. THERESA LADIAO
ILOILO City – The Iloilo City Police Office (ICPO) refuted claims that this city remains a hotspot for illegal drug activities.
Police Colonel Kim Legada, city police director, said the ICPO, along with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) and other enforcement bodies, have been conducting regular anti-drug operations to assess the validity of this label.
“To date, there is no supporting data from the Philippine National Police to indicate that Iloilo City is among the areas severely affected by drug problems,” said Legada.
While Iloilo City and Western Visayas are known as transshipment points for narcotics from Manila and Cebu, he said historical records do not confirm the presence of significant drug laboratories or large drug caches in the region.
“There is therefore no factual basis to the ‘shabulized city’ tag based on the data available,” stressed Legada.
The term “shabulized” had been associated with Iloilo City since 2016.
“Most shabu-lized” was how then President Rodrigo Duterte described the city as he linked then mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog and several police officers to illegal drugs.
Mabilog has consistently denied being involved in illegal drugs.
“Iloilo grabe talaga,” said Duterte in August 2016 as he ordered the Philippine National Police (PNP) to remove from Mabilog the power to supervise the city’s police.
Fearing for his life, Mabilog left the country in 2017 and sought asylum in the United States. He returned just this September 10, 2024. The House of Representatives’ “quad committee” has invited him to be one of its resource speakers in its ongoing investigation on the so-called drug war of the Duterte administration.
At a recent ANC Headstart interview, journalist Karen Davila asked Mabilog: “Ano po ba ang ibubulgar ninyo pagdating ninyo sa committee hearing?”
Mabilog replied: “I will just state po what is the truth and what are the facts. And the truth is that Iloilo City is not the most shabulized in the country. Iloilo City has been very active in the fight against illegal drugs even since in the beginning from 2010 when I became mayor until I left; that I am not involved in anything at all with regards to protecting or anything about illegal drugs. I don’t even smoke. I never tasted any illegal drug in my life. And if I have all the documents from our minutes of the meetings of our Anti-Drug Abuse Council, everything and all activities and programs that the city has against illegal drugs just to prove that what they have done is really damaging to my person and not only to me but as well as to the other innocent mayors who were also accused, just to prove that there were human rights violations done.”/PN
