Police: Not a shadow of Ecleo in his own hometown

Police officials on Wednesday expressed their cluelessness on the search for convicted lawmaker Ruben Ecleo Jr. – not a shadow of whom has been sighted in his own hometown for almost a month now.

“There is no sign na andito sila [There is no sign they are here]," said Sr. Supt. Inocentes Capuno, officer-in-charge of the Dinagat police, in an interview with reporter Chino Gaston aired over GMA News’ “24 Oras" newscast Wednesday evening.

In a resolution dated January 28, the Sandiganbayan First Division ordered the arrest of the Dinagat Islands representative to the Lower House, after the Supreme Court affirmed last November the Sandiganbayan decision to convict Ecleo and two other local officials for graft. (See: Sandigan orders arrest of ‘Supreme Master’ Ecleo)



GMA News efforts to trace Ecleo’s whereabouts proved fruitless as of posting time.

Staff members that maintain his mansion, the mausoleum of his father Ruben Sr., and the headquarters of the Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Association (PBMA), where Ecleo sits as “supreme master," told GMA News their boss has not shown up recently.

The guard at the heavily gated residence of his mother, Dinagat Gov. Glenda Ecleo, also said he has not seen the lawmaker for around a week now.

Local police officials have kept themselves on alert at airports and seaports to ensure Ecleo will not escape. They have also called on the lawmaker to surrender in order to prevent a repeat of the bloody encounter between the police and PBMA members in 2002.

A firefight at the PBMA compound in 2002 resulted in the deaths of a policeman and 22 of Ecleo’s followers, in the midst of police and military efforts to arrest him. Ecleo, who was then a suspect in the murder of his wife Alona Bacolod Ecleo, surrendered shortly after the incident.—Paterno Esmaquel II/JV, GMA News