The Sandiganbayan has dismissed a graft case against Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Undersecretary Jed Patrick Mabilog, ruling that the Office of the Ombudsman's near-seven-year delay in filing the case violated his constitutional right to a speedy disposition of cases, according to a report by the Manila Bulletin published Aug. 15.
The Sandiganbayan's Third Division granted Mabilog's October 2024 motion to quash in a resolution dated Aug. 12, 2026. In a 25-page decision obtained by the Manila Bulletin, the court found "inordinate delay" by the Ombudsman between the time it received the original complaint against Mabilog and when it eventually filed the graft case — a gap of nearly seven years. "Mabilog's constitutional right to speedy disposition of cases has been violated," the Sandiganbayan wrote, according to the Manila Bulletin.
The underlying allegation
The case stemmed from a towing contract the Iloilo City government awarded to 3L Towering Services during Mabilog's tenure as city mayor in 2015. Prosecutors alleged Mabilog and former city councilor Plaridel Nava II had an undisclosed stake in the firm that won the contract — the kind of conflict-of-interest arrangement the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act is meant to penalize. The Sandiganbayan's dismissal does not rule on the merits of that underlying allegation; it turns entirely on the Ombudsman's delay in prosecuting it.
A mayor accused, cleared, then pardoned
Mabilog's legal history stretches back to the drug-war era of the Duterte administration, which repeatedly accused him of being a "drug protector" while he served as Iloilo City mayor. In 2017, the Ombudsman handed down a perpetual disqualification order against Mabilog after finding him guilty of serious dishonesty and grave misconduct tied to allegedly unexplained wealth that the Duterte government linked to the illegal drug trade. Mabilog left for the United States in 2017, saying he sought asylum there amid what he described as constant death threats from Duterte, and returned to the Philippines in September 2024.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. granted Mabilog a presidential pardon in January 2025, reversing the 2017 Ombudsman disqualification ruling. The Aug. 12 Sandiganbayan resolution dismissing the separate towing-contract graft case is a further legal win for Mabilog, who now serves as a DILG undersecretary.
Mabilog's response
"At the end of the day, the Truth will always prevail. God is good all the time. God loves and protects the innocent and punishes the guilty," Mabilog said in a statement Friday, Aug. 14, according to the Manila Bulletin. He thanked Iloilo City Rep. Julienne "JamJam" Baronda, Land Transportation Office officer-in-charge for Negros Island Jeck Conlu, and Ariel "Aye" Castañeda Sr.
What the ruling does — and doesn't — say about the Ombudsman
The Sandiganbayan's finding of "inordinate delay" is a procedural rebuke of the Ombudsman's case-handling timeline rather than a finding on whether the underlying towing-contract allegations had merit. Speedy-disposition dismissals have become a recurring feature of Philippine graft litigation, with the Sandiganbayan increasingly willing to throw out cases — regardless of their substance — when the Ombudsman takes years to act on a complaint. It is not yet known whether the Ombudsman will seek reconsideration or otherwise contest the dismissal; no statement from the Office of the Ombudsman was available in reporting reviewed for this article.
Sources
- Sandiganbayan dismisses graft case vs DILG Usec Mabilog — Manila Bulletin, Aug. 15, 2026