Mayor demands apology from UK-born woman

ILOILO CITY—The mayor of Iloilo City is demanding an apology from a British-born woman who claimed she was held captive and made a sex slave in the Philippines.

Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog said Mary Elizabeth Jones tarnished the image of the city and Ilonggos through her “baseless” allegations.

“That is so unfair. We all know that this has never happened before in our peaceful city,” Mabilog told the Inquirer in a phone interview on Tuesday.

Last week, Jones told the Auckland-based New Zealand Herald that she was held captive for months and was raped daily by up to nine men shortly after she arrived in Iloilo to heed a Facebook invitation to a martial arts training program.