The issuance by the Sandiganbayan of an arrest order against Ruben Ecleo Jr. upon his conviction on graft charges is not as easy as it seems. Issuing the order and carrying it out, as far as Ecleo is concerned, are as different as a goldfish from an antelope.
This is not the first brush of Ecleo with the law. He has a pending parricide case arising from the killing of his wife. A previous arrest warrant issued in connection with this case, and how it was effected, should prove very instructive to everyone.
In June 2002, 23 people were killed in a night of violence after armed members of the Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Association resisted an attempt to serve the warrant against their supreme leader in his enclave in San Jose, Dinagat.
If your mental picture of the attempt to serve the warrant consisted of a policeman on a motorcycle with a piece of paper in his hand, you must have been born yesterday to not know who Ecleo is.
The attempt to serve the warrant consisted of a massive force of more than two hundred special action force policemen and soldiers from the Army’s 20th Infantry Battalion, backed by armored personnel carriers and two MG-520 Air Force helicopters.
On the same night here in Cebu, hundreds of kilometers from the scene of battle, a single Ecleo supporter armed with Uzi and Ingram machine pistols, stormed the family home of Ecleo’s slain wife and killed both her parents, as well as a brother who may have witnessed her murder.
Ecleo eventually surrendered and was placed behind bars. But he manuevered to have himself freed for supposed health reasons and lost no time getting himself elected to Congress, where he now sits when the warrant was issued.
So you see, his graft conviction and warrant of arrest are really of no moment. What is important, and decidedly more interesting, is how to effect the arrest. To be sure, Ecleo may try to use all legal avenues available to him. But what happens when he uses them all up?
It is not clear where Ecleo is now. For one thing, he is not expected to show up for Congress sessions with that warrant over his head. If, on the other hand, he is back in his enclave in Dinagat, the government sure has another serious problem in his hand.