Leon “Boy” Famulagan, vice president of the Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Association’s chapter in Nonoc, Talisay City came out last week with two appeals to the public.
First, he said that people should not confuse the PBMA with its supreme master, now parricide convict and fugitive Ruben Ecleo Jr., congressman of the lone district of Dinagat Island.
Second, Famulagan said people should not call the PBMA a cult. A woman member of the PBMA backed up this call with a statement to Cebu Daily News saying that their group practices mainstream church devotions like adoration for the Holy Trinity and meditation of the mysteries of the Holy Rosary in Aramaic.
Ecleo’s status as a parricide convict and the accompanying penalty of up to 40 years in jail for the killing of his wife Alona Bacolod Ecleo will become final and executory today, when he loses his right to appeal his case before a higher court if he does not turn himself in and explain why he was absent from the court last month when Judge Soliver Peras promulgated his decision on the case.
Famulagan cannot blame the public for associating the rest of the PBMA with Ecleo because members of their brotherhood had a history of defending and even giving up their lives to try and stop the authorities from arresting him the last time they did and the casualties were not only PBMA members.
The PBMA membership has dwindled to a few thousand following the killing of Alona and members of her immediate family, murders all associated with Ecleo.
Still, the casual observer cannot help but suspect that the supreme master’s concealment may be facilitated with the help of resources from, if not his loyal following, then that certainly would not consist of people from the congregation next door.
Famulagan and the rest of the PBMA members can help themselves only if they take their appeal for dissociation from Ecleo a step farther.
Instead of expecting the public to do an about-face in its perception of the PBMA, the group should appeal for Ecleo to surface and surrender to authorities.
After all, it is nothing but Ecleo’s behavior while he is PBMA’s sitting leader that prompted defections from and unfavorable publicity for the brotherhood.
A PBMA call for Ecleo to surrender would not only erase the perception that he has an iron hold on the group.
It would also address Famulagan’s concern about the label that now sticks to the group’s name like paper stuck through super glue to wood.
Sociologists tell us that the practice by members of familiar rituals does not necessarily exempt a group from the cult category.
But one mark that a group is no cult is its members’ willingness, when necessary, to acknowledge the power of civil government and commit an erring leader, regardless of his charisma and record of benevolence, into the hands of the law.