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.

Senior 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

ECLEO’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