A Liberal Party candidate for mayor in Mataas na Kahoy town in Batangas province is seeking reelection from detention in a province in the Visayas.
In the case of Mayor Jay Manalo Ilagan, his supporters, led by wife Janet, who is running for vice mayor, are doing the groundwork for his campaign.
Ilagan is detained in Ormoc City in Leyte province while facing charges of rape and human trafficking.
In 2014, a 19-year-old woman sued Ilagan for allegedly sexually assaulting her in 2013 in a pension house in Ormoc.
Ilagan eluded arrest even after the police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), in December 2015, raided his farm in Barangay Santol in Mataas na Kahoy. The CIDG reported seizing at least 142 firearms, among them high-powered guns.
Ilagan surrendered to the National Bureau of Investigation in Manila in January 2016, but he denied the charges.
“He was no longer visible at the municipal hall in the last two years,” said Vice Mayor Henry Laqui, who was appointed acting mayor in January by the Department of the Interior and Local Government.
Aside from Ilagan, running for mayor are Gualberto Silva of Nationalist People’s Coalition and independent candidate Primely Regalado.
Should he win, Ilagan, who has yet to be convicted, may still assume the mayoral post, according to Ariel Iglesia, DILG assistant regional director in Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon). Maricar Cinco and Marrah Erika Lesaba-Rabe, Inquirer Southern Luzon