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Saturday, July 09, 2005
Cancel DNA test: Ecleo’s son
By Grecar Nilles
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
For the second time, the eldest son of former mayor Ruben Ecleo Jr. yesterday asked the court to spare him from a DNA test in his father’s parricide trial.
Instead of heeding the court’s summons for him to appear, Ecleo’s 10-year-old son (name withheld) sent a letter to Regional Trial Court Branch 9 Judge Geraldine Faith Econg, saying he does not want to be tested for DNA.
The elder Ecleo has already given DNA samples to experts from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) last Thursday.
He is accused of killing his wife, Alona, last Jan. 5, 2002 inside their house in Banawa, Cebu City.
The prosecution wants to prove that the body of a woman found in Dalaguete, Cebu three days after that day was Alona’s, hence the DNA tests.
Alona’s siblings have already submitted samples, for comparison with those taken from the body found in Dalaguete.
But according to Ecleo’s son, the test would subject him to “bad talks and publicity” not only from people following the case, but also in the school where he is studying.
“I’m scared,” the child said in his letter to the court, written on a sheet of intermediate paper.
He said that while his father has explained to him the case and DNA examination, he remains afraid of the negative consequences the testing might bring to his life.
“It would have been easy for the court to compel the child to give DNA samples if it was a paternity case. But the child has nothing to do with the parricide case,” a source told Sun.Star Cebu.
Without the child’s DNA samples, the NBI and University of the Philippines-Natural Sciences Research Institute have told the court they can’t reach conclusive results on the cadaver’s identity.
The court almost issued yesterday a warrant of arrest for the child, for disobeying a court order, but Judge Econg gave him leeway and just issued another subpoena for him to appear on Monday.
On Monday, the child will have to testify about the letter he sent to the judge, who wants to find out whether it was voluntarily written, without anyone coaching him.
(July 9, 2005 issue)
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