Cebu City, Philippines - Apparently irked by the slow moving pace of the trial of the parricide case against cult leader Ruben Ecleo Jr., the judge handling the case has warned the prosecution panel to present witnesses or face sanctions.
Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judge Geraldine Faith Econg said the panel of private prosecutors should be ready to present their next witness on May 12 as she vowed that the hearing of the case will resume in May, "no matter what."
"I will impose proper sanction if you will not present a witness. If not, you better rest your case. You don’t like me when I am angry, I’m mean," she said. The hearing case has not moved since January 27 when the prosecution said they are resting its case.
Shortly thereafter, however, prosecutors asked the court to exhume the victim’s body for DNA samples to establish the identity of the slain Alona Bacolod-Ecleo. The DNA was expected to put an end to question on the identity of the cadaver found at a ravine in Dalaguete, Cebu in January 2002.
Experts of the University of the Philippines (UP), Philippine National Police (PNP) and National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) took the DNA samples from the cadaver last March 7.
Econg had also earlier issued an order to include Ecleo and his three children with Alona in the DNA examination in order to match it with the result of the DNA analysis being conducted by the UP DNA Testing Center which had earlier took DNA samples from the body of the woman believed to be that of Alona’s.
Econg said she wasn’t able to find sufficient basis of the claims of Ecleo’s lawyers that the DNA testing would violate the human rights of the supreme master of the Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Association (PBMA).
The judge said the prosecution panel has presented enough arguments to convince her to order the DNA test on Ecleo and the three children.
Econg also ordered The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to be present during the extraction of DNA samples from the three kids to see to it that the children’s rights are protected.
Econg, the sixth judge to handle the case, said she could not wait any longer for the lawyers.
Ecleo had denied having killed his wife, stuffing her body in a garbage bag and dumping it at a roadside in Dalaguete, Cebu on Jan. 5, 2002. He had said that he loved his wife and could not have killed her.
It took several lives and more than 100 government troopers to force Ecleo to surrender on June 18, 2002.
Some of Ecleo’s supporters in the PBMA engaged the arresting policemen in a shootout in San Jose, Dinagat Island, Surigao del Norte.
A PBMA member also allegedly killed three members of the Bacolod family in their residence in Mandaue City on the day Ecleo surrendered.