News Briefs
MILITANT GROUP FARMER HOLD RALLY
MILITANT groups yesterday held a protest rally in front of the Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7) in Cebu City to mark the death anniversary of a peasant leader who was shot dead in Bohol Sept. 7, 2006.
They also protested the Aug. 5 dispersal of farmers who staged a human barricade in Aloguinsan town in south Cebu.
Jaime Paglinawan, spokesman of Bayan-Central Visayas, said the group, which includes farmers, is seeking justice for peasant leader Victor Olayvar, former chairman of Bayan in Bohol.
They blamed military agents for Olayvar’s gunslaying n Danao, Bohol province.
Bayan and its allies plan to file charges against the police involved in the Aloguinsan riot.
Article continues after this advertisementSenior Supt. Patrocinio Comendador Jr. said the police were just doing their job to escort a court sheriff to enforce a court order in Aloguinsan. /CORRESPONDENT GABRIEL C. BONJOC
Article continues after this advertisementECLEO’S MOVE TO PAY BOND ASSAILED
TWO arrest warrants have been issued against him but cult leader Rep. Ruben Ecleo Jr. still wants to stay free.
His recent offer to post a P3-million bail bond and avoid arrest was criticized by a Cebu lawyer as a “mockery of justice.”
“He (Ecleo) should surrender first. He cannot ask for relief while defying the authority of the law. It’s a mockery of justice,” said Fritz Quiñanola, one of the prosecutors in the parricide case against Ecleo, who is accused of masterminding the murder of his wife Alona in 2002 in Cebu.
Ecleo’s lawyer Maria Concepcion Uson-Noel requested the Sandiganbayan to fix a bond so the effects of the arrest warrants issued against him will be suspended.
Noel said Ecleo is willing to pay a P3-million bond as a guarantee that he would “not flee the country, continue to obey the court and remain under its jurisdiction.”
The Sandiganbayan convicted Ecleo on three counts of graft for overpricing construction supplies during his stint as mayor of San Jose, Dinagat Island in Surigao del Norte from 1991 to 1994.
He was also ordered expelled from Congress as an effect of the conviction.
Ecleo is supreme master of the Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Association (PBMA).
Even if the Sandiganbayan grants Ecleo’s request, the cult leader faces another arrest warrant issued by the Cebu court.
Judge Soliver Peras of the Regional Trial Court Branch 10 in Cebu City canceled Ecleo’s P1-million bail in the parricide case after he failed to attend several hearings./REPORTER ADOR VINCENT S. MAYOL
2 DISPATCHERS COLLARED
TWO men were arrested for violation of anti-dispatching ordinance in Mandaue City.
Efren Mendez, 31, of barangay Basak, and Dexter Verdida, 25, of barangay Canduman, were apprehended by traffic enforcer Renato Mangubat after the two men were allegedly caught asking money from jeepney drivers on J.P. Rizal Street in barangay Basak last Tuesday afternoon.
The two men were turned over to the Basak police station where they were detained./REPORTER JUCELL MARIE P. CUYOS
