Prosecutors dismiss shabu raps vs Ecleo

CEBU CITY — Jailed cult leader Ruben Ecleo Jr. scored a major victory the other day when the city prosecutor’s office dismissed the police complaint against him for alleged possession of shabu.

"Syempre malipay gyud (Of course, I’m happy)," was all Ecleo could tell reporters from his detention cell at the Bagong Buhay Rehabilitation Center here.

Ecleo, in jail to await his trial on parricide charges in connection with the murder of his wife Alona Bacolod last January, was slapped an additional charge for drug possession after jail guards allegedly found three sachets of shabu, weighing about 1.03 grams, in a pack of soap in his traveling bag when he was brought to Bagong Buhay.

Ecleo, supreme leader of the Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Association, was taken to Cebu from Manila on June 21, just days after surrendering to police in a clash at the cult’s enclave in San Jose, Dinagat, Surigao del Norte, which left 16 PBMA members and a policeman dead.

Prosecutors Gilbert Moises and Fernando Gubalane said the police failed to establish that Ecleo was in "constructive possession" of his traveling bag.

They said the evidence submitted by the police fell short of the requirements of probable cause to indict Ecleo of illegal possession of prohibited drug.

Ecleo claimed the shabu had been planted.

The prosecutors said the bag was not in Ecleo’s actual possession when he was transferred from Camp Crame in Manila to the Bagong Buhay Rehabilitation Center but had been in the custody of Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) agent Pablo Gentalian.

Chief city prosecutor Jose Pedrosa approved the findings of Moises and Gubalane.

Citing jurisprudence, the prosecutors defined "constructive possession" as the relation between the owner of the drug and the drug itself, when the owner is not in actual physical possession but when it is still under his control and management and subject to his disposition.

They said the traveling bag was definitely not under Ecleo’s possession, control and management and disposition because he was already arrested and detained even before the bag was delivered to him at Camp Crame.

The prosecutors added that for a person to be liable for possession of prohibited or regulated drug, the possession must be proven unauthorized, either actual or constructive, irrespective of its quantity and with intent to possess with full knowledge that what was possessed was any of the prohibited or regulated drug.

Ecleo is alleged to have had a history of drug use. — Freeman News Service