Witness claims seeing Ecleo, bodyguard with black plastic bag

CEBU CITY — The so-called surprise witness of the prosecution in the parricide case against cult leader Ruben Ecleo Jr. has testified that she saw Ecleo and his bodyguard in Dalaguete town with a black plastic bag.

Unlike in past hearings, people were barred from entering the courtroom last Wednesday, except for the lawyers handling the case, five representatives of the litigants and members of the media. Even the taking of pictures and video footage were not allowed for security purposes.

The witness, Gloria Navaja, testified that she saw Ecleo and bodyguard Juryven Padero in Barangay Coro in Dalaguete town on the night of Jan. 5 last year with the black plastic bag believed containing the body of Ecleo’s wife, Alona Bacolod.

Alona’s body was found inside a black garbage bag bound with masking tape and dumped in a deep ravine in Dalaguete.

Navaja said she went to Dalaguete in the afternoon of Jan. 5, 2002 purportedly to buy a goat that she could slaughter to celebrate the Sto. Niño fiesta.

Shortly before midnight of the same day, she said she went out to buy bread and returned to her mother’s house aboard a habal-habal.

On the way home, she said she passed by the area where she allegedly saw Ecleo and Padero standing at the rear of a car parked beside the road. In between them was a black plastic bag laid on the ground, she added.

Navaja said the motorcycle she was riding in had to slow down in the area where she saw Ecleo and Padero because the road was reportedly being repaired.

She said it was Ecleo whom she first saw and their gaze reportedly met when the motorcycle slowly passed by him.

While the area was relatively dark, Navaja said it was somehow illuminated by light coming from sodium lamps. She said she clearly saw Ecleo’s face because of the light from the motorcycle and the parked car.

Ecleo On TV

Navaja said she recognized Ecleo was the man she saw that night when she saw him on television after he was accused of killing his wife.

It was also on television where she learned of his name, she said.

Asked if the one she saw on television was present inside the courtroom, Navaja then pointed to Ecleo who was seated on the bench for the accused.

She described Ecleo as taller than the man he was with that evening she saw them. Ecleo reportedly wore a white shirt and jeans while his companion wore a vest and pants made of the same material.

Navaja said she went to Bacolod’s wake at Camp Sotero Cabahug on Jan. 12 last year and told Thelma Chiong, vice president of the Crusade Against Violence, that she saw Ecleo in Dalaguete that evening of Jan. 5.

She said it was Chiong whom she approached because she constantly saw her on television and thought that she was the one very active with the case.

She then executed an affidavit detailing what she saw that night of Jan. 5, 2002. However, it was not mentioned in Navaja’s testimony whether she saw Ecleo and Padero dump the garbage bag in the ravine or not.

Ecleo, supreme leader of the Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Association, is the primary suspect in the killing of Bacolod who was found dead several days after she went missing. — Freeman News Service