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Saturday, October 23, 2004
Transfer bid holds up Ecleo parricide trial
EXECUTIVE Judge Simeon Dumdum Jr. has ordered the Office of the Cebu City Prosecutor to comment within five days on a standing motion to defer proceedings on the parricide case against Ruben Ecleo Jr.
In a single-page order, Judge Dumdum said the motion, which also asks the Supreme Court (SC) to transfer the proceedings out of Cebu, will be submitted for resolution once the prosecution submits its comment.
Assistant City Prosecutor Nicolas Sellon, in an interview, said he intends refer the matter to City Prosecutor Cezar Tajanlangit for action.
For their part, the other members of the panel said they still need to meet and discuss the development that, since the main motion of transferring the venue is entirely up to the High Tribunal, may merely be ministerial.
Ecleo, in a motion dated Oct. 18, 2004 but submitted to court a day late, sought the transfer of the hearings from Cebu to Manila. He cited “extreme hostility” shown against him by the Cebuano community.
Security worries
Ecleo had filed the same motion with the Supreme Court (SC) shortly after the parricide case began in 2002, but the High Tribunal denied it.
Ecleo stands accused of killing his 27-year-old wife Alona Bacolod-Ecleo in their house in Banawa, Cebu City in January 2002.
In a letter to SC Court Administrator Presbitero J. Velasco Jr., Ecleo said a transfer will “obviate any room of partiality, biases and prejudgments that will lead to miscarriage of justice.”
He also raised the need for his security, as well as that of his witnesses and lawyers.
“The extreme hostility of the community delivers him (Ecleo) to death row at this very stage despite his constitutional presumption of innocence,” the letter read.
Ecleo’s lawyers Orlando Salatandre Jr. and Giovanni Mata have filed an ex-parte urgent motion with the RTC to defer the raffling and further proceedings of the case pending resolution of Ecleo’s letter to the SC.
With the murder of lawyer Arbet Sta. Ana-Yongco being tied to their camp, Ecleo foresees “more violent and vicious reactions” from the public if he will be acquitted. (KNR)
(October 23, 2004 issue)
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