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PH most wanted, Ruben Ecleo Jr., arrested in Pampanga

By Christopher Lloyd Caliwan

July 30, 2020, 4:34 pm

<p>Former Representative of Dinagat Islands and cult leader Ruben Ecleo Jr. (<em>Photo courtesy of NCRPO</em>) </p>

Former Representative of Dinagat Islands and cult leader Ruben Ecleo Jr. (Photo courtesy of NCRPO

MANILA – Police operatives on Thursday morning arrested former Representative of Dinagat Islands and cult leader Ruben Ecleo Jr. in Pampanga.

According to National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) chief, Maj. Debold Sinas, Ecleo was arrested at around 4:30 a.m. in San Fernando, Pampanga based on an arrest warrant issued by the 1st Division of Sandiganbayan in Quezon City for charges of graft and corruption.

Ecleo, supreme master of the Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Association (PBMA)-- a religious organization founded by his father Ruben Sr., is Philippine's number 1 Most Wanted Person by the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), with a PHP2-million reward for his capture.

Warrants for his arrest were issued by the Sandiganbayan First Division in January 2011 and by the Cebu Regional Trial Court in April 2011. He had evaded capture for nine years.

He said they received information from a police agent from Dinagat Island that Ecleo had left the island six years ago and was hiding in the National Capital Region (NCR).

“The informant came from the Dinagat island and proceeded to Manila, coordinated to our operatives, and gave us an idea where Ecleo is residing,” Sinas told reporters.

Before the arrest, the NCRPO operatives placed Ecleo's residence in Angeles, Pampanga under surveillance for six months.

Also arrested was Ecleo's driver, Benjie Relacion Fernan, for obstruction of justice.

In 2012, Ecleo was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his wife, Alona, in Cebu City in April 2012, 10 years after Alona's body was found inside a trash bag was dumped in Cebu's Dalaguete town.

On June 18, 2002, six months after Alona's remains were found, police stormed Ecleo residence on Dinagat Islands. resulting in a 3-hour shootout with PBMA members that left 16 cult members and a policeman dead.

The court ordered Ecleo to pay PHP25 million in compensatory damages to his wife's family.

Ecleo was also convicted of graft in 2006 for the anomalous construction of a public market and town hall, and repairs of his cult's building in San Jose, Dinagat Islands when he was then mayor in the early '90s. He was sentenced to 31 years in jail.

Seized from the suspect were three short firearms, one M-16 rifle, fake IDs, one golf set, one Grandia van registered under his fake name "Marcos Macapagal Garcia", PHP173,000 cash, three cellphones, and pieces of jewelry.

“We will try to check if the guns are licensed, (if not), then we could file a case for illegal possession,” he said. (PNA)

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