Subpoena for Ecleo out

CEBU CITY — The city prosecutor’s office has ordered Ruben Ecleo Jr. to appear for a clarificatory hearing on Jan. 30 to answer the parricide charges filed against him.

City prosecutor Jose Pedrosa said they have sent subpoenas to Ecleo and his bodyguard Juriven Padero to submit their counter-affidavits.

The purpose of the clarificatory hearing is to help the fiscal determine whether there is probable cause or enough evidence to file a case against Ecleo and Padero in court.

Pedrosa said the investigation will be completed in 45 days.

Ecleo, head of the Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Association, has been implicated in the killing of his wife, Alona Bacolod Ecleo, 27, whose body was found in a black garbage bag bound by masking tape at the bottom of a ravine in Dalaguete three weeks ago.

Autopsy findings revealed that Alona had been beaten up and strangled to death.

Alona and Ruben had been temporarily residing in Cebu City while she pursued medical studies at Southwestern University where she was a senior due to graduate in March.

Ruben left for Surigao on the day Alona’s body was found and has not returned since. His mother, Surigao del Norte Rep. Glenda Ecleo, had said she wanted to protect Ruben from public scrutiny.

A brother of Alona, who had been living with the couple in Banawa, claimed to have seen Ecleo and Padero load what appeared to be a body in a garbage bag into the couple’s car, a red Toyota Corolla. — Freeman News Service