Siblings to appeal guilty verdict for Ecleo

Surigao City—The camp of Dinagat Island Rep. Ruben Ecleo Jr. will appeal a Cebu court decision that found the lawmaker guilty of murdering his wife in 2002, his brother said Monday.
 
Dinagat provincial administrator Benglen Ecleo, Rep. Ecleo’s brother, said their camp would file a motion for reconsideration before the Court of Appeals within the next 10 days.
 
“The justice system of our republic provides us an option or mechanism for due process, and we believe that there is still that highest tribunal of the land to hear our quest for truth and justice,” Rep. Ecleo’s brother said in a statement.
 
He also appealed to members of his brother’s group, the Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Association (PBMA), to remain calm and strong despite the lawmaker’s guilty verdict.
 
Dinagat Vice-Governor and Rep. Ecleo’s sister, Jade Ecleo, meanwhile, posted on her Facebook page that her brother does not deserve the life sentence meted out by the Cebu court.
 
“The one who orchestrated all this mess should be the one to be put in jail and not my beloved brother,” she said.
 
On Friday, the Cebu Regional Trial Court sentenced Ecleo to life imprisonment for killing his wife, Alona, in 2002.  
 
Ecleo, considered as the “supreme master” of the PBMA, has been in hiding for over a year after the Sandiganbayan ordered his arrest for separate graft cases.
 
These cases stemmed from an allegedly anomalous construction project he undertook when he was still mayor of San Jose town in Surigao del Norte from 1991 to 1994.
 
In February last year, Ecleo’s lawyers asked the SC to block his arrest on orders of the Sandiganbayan, arguing that they still have two motions pending before the SC. —Natz Corbeta/Andreo Calonzo/VS, GMA News