Biazon: Disarm Ecleo cultists

The Philippine National Police (PNP) should disarm members of the Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Association (PBMA) and charge them with illegal possession of firearms, Sen. Rodolfo Biazon said yesterday.

Biazon, a former military chief, said the PNP should explain how the cult led by murder suspect Ruben Ecleo Jr. was able to amass a massive arsenal that included automatic rifles, submachine guns, machine guns and grenade launchers.

Yesterday, about 20 grams of shabu were seized from Ecleo shortly after he was transferred from Camp Crame in Quezon City to a jail in Cebu City. Ecleo has denied murdering his wife.

"These powerful weapons in the hands of fanatics such as the followers of Ruben Ecleo – whose judgment of what is right or wrong, legal or illegal, is already impaired by fanatical beliefs – constitutes a dangerous threat to community and to society," Biazon said.

A routine body search by jail guards conducted upon Ecleo’s arrival in Cebu yielded three plastic sachets of shabu, Central Visayas police commander Chief Superintendent Avelino Razon said.

This bolsters police findings that Ecleo was high on shabu when he led his followers in the shootout.

Razon said they are still trying to find out how Ecleo got the shabu. He may not have been searched before he was taken out of his cell at Camp Crame, where he tested positive for shabu, he said.

As a result, Ecleo will be slapped with possession of illegal drugs in addition to other charges. Ecleo faces charges of parricide for the death of his wife; direct assault with complex crimes of homicide, frustrated homicide and illegal possession of firearms for the Dinagat clash; and multiple murder for the killing of his wife’s parents and two siblings in Mandaue City.

Cebu City Prosecutor Jose Pedrosa has called on the Department of Justice to place seven witnesses, who would testify on the Mandaue killings, under the Witness Protection Program.

He said he feared that the witnesses might later refuse to testify for fear of reprisal.

On Tuesday, Ecleo, 47, and 200 of his followers shot it out with police and troops when they came to arrest him at his mansion in San Jose town on Dinagat island off Surigao del Norte for allegedly murdering his 27-year-old wife, Alona Bacolod-Ecleo.

Sixteen cult members and a police officer were killed in the gunbattle that went on all night and ended with Ecleo’s surrender the following morning.

The resistance was so stiff police and soldiers had to be backed by two Air Force MG-520 helicopter gunships.

Biazon wondered if local politicians and police officials were bribed by the PBMA so it could build an arsenal.

The PNP regional command has relieved the entire San Jose police force after learning that all its officers were PBMA members.

Razon tightened jail security in anticipation of possible attacks by PBMA members who might try to spring their leader from jail. He said Ecleo would be accorded his rights. However, only his immediate family and lawyers would be allowed to visit him.

The PBMA’s security force, the so-called White Eagles, is believed to keep rebellious cult members in line, and potential threats at bay. They have been known to blindly obey Ecleo, whom they call "Divine Master" and believe is the reincarnation of Jesus Christ.

It was rumored that cult members readily offered their virgin daughters to Ecleo in the belief that the girls would receive God’s holy spirit.

Although small, the PBMA is said to be more potent than the Iglesia ni Cristo in local elections.

Opponents of PBMA candidates get no votes in areas where the cult holds sway, especially on Dinagat island, which is called the "New Jerusalem" by cult members.

The Ecleos are virtually unbeatable even in provincial-wide elections, especially when the opposition is divided.

While PBMA members do not want their organization to be called a cult, they once believed that their founding leader, Ruben Ecleo Sr., would rise from the dead like Christ.

When the elder Ecleo died in 1987, his members refused to bury him, expecting him to be resurrected after three days.

After about a week, when the stench of the decomposing body was already unbearable, PBMA leaders declared that the elder Ecleo’s spirit had entered his son’s body.

The body was then buried and the young Ecleo became the PBMA’s Divine Master.

A Catholic priest who joined the cult in the 1970s said investigating the cult proved difficult because each member was sworn to secrecy.

"We had to promise this fidelity before the executive vice president. Some of my companions broke down and went crazy in the brainwashing process. But I kept my sanity by finding an hour daily [by praying]," wrote Fr. Florio Falcon, a parish priest in Surigao del Sur, in a book "Filipino Religious Psychology."

"Although the bonds of secrecy do not allow me to divulge any inside information, I feel morally bound to tell the truth for the sake of the general public good," he said.

According to Falcon, Ecleo Sr. once claimed that his group had 300,000 members nationwide, including 60,000 "missionary doctors and nurses" who provided health care to remote villages. Each wore rings that indicated their membership.

Falcon submitted himself to the PBMA initiation ceremonies and disciplines until he passed the requirements to become a missionary doctor.

The PBMA grew mainly because it gave to the needy and took advantage of its members naiveté, Falcon said. — With reports from Christina Mendez, Sandy Araneta, Freeman News Service