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By Herbie Gomez
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY — They may call
their founder the “Divine Master” and be willing to die to
protect his son. But members of the Philippine Benevolent
Missionaries Association (PBMA) insist Ruben Ecleo Sr. did not found
a cult.
The PBMA primer states it is “neither religion
nor a sect.” It describes PBMA as an association for brotherhood
and charity.
“Members have been constantly urged to
strengthen their faith and relations with the religion where they
respectively belong,” the primer adds.
The PBMA defines cult as a “system of
religious worship” and a group “devoted to a person, principle,
etc.” The association does not fall under such category because it
“does not practice any form of religious worship.”
Fortress
None of the Ecleos is being worshipped as a god
although the PBMA admits its followers give their late founder and
his successor, Ruben Jr., a “particular regard.” Strong enough
to defy cops with an arrest warrant for their leader.
Ruben Jr., PBMA “supreme president,” is
wanted for the January murder of his wife Alona in Cebu. He is
believed to be hiding inside a well-fortified and guarded PBMA
shrine in San Jose, a Surigao del Norte town on the impoverished
island of Dinagat.
Ruben Jr.’s brother, Allan II is mayor of San
Jose. His mother, Glenda, is a representative to Congress.
Ruben Jr.’s close ties to power, and his
family’s friendship with Sen. Robert Barbers, have prompted
warnings of a white wash.
Mom’s appeal
Barbers over the weekend put his foot down and
ordered cops to arrest Ecleo.
Following a conference with Caraga police Chief
Alberto Olario, Barbers also called on Rep. Ecleo to surrender to
her son.
Barbers “advised” Chief Supt. Olario to get
the ex-mayor of San Jose, Surigao del Norte, after the congresswoman
reportedly asked Caraga police not to serve an arrest warrant until
the Court of Appeals (CA) decides on a petition for a temporary
restraining order.
Ruben Jr., through his lawyer, has questioned the arrest warrant
issued by a Cebu court. Olario, after meeting with Barbers on
Saturday afternoon, said the police would get Ruben Jr. in
“a matter of days.”
In a letter to this correspondent, Olario said
the Caraga police were exhausting “methods and strategies to
uphold the law without the necessity of resorting to forceful
means”.
Wary cops
Cops are wary of tangling with PBMA members, who
have threa-tened to protect Ecleo Jr. “with our lives.”
Although charged with parricide, Ecleo Jr., like
his pa, is seen as a “rallying point in translating the
aspirations of promoting world brotherhood, through benevolent
practices, into actuality.”
However, PBMA members note that calling the late
Ecleo “divine master” and his successor-son “supreme
president” and “master,” does not mean the due are religious
leaders.
But the PBMA admits that its members regard its
founder as “one (who) is devoted to God”, “supremely great”,
“holy” and “good”, not to mention “miracle worker”.
The elder Ecleo’s “transfigurations,”
“healing powers,” “ability to raise the dead,” “accurately
predict,” and be “omnipresent” are the normal topics at the
PBMA.
Resurrection
The group also teaches that, like the biblical
Jesus Christ, their late founder was resurrected from the dead and
appeared to nearly “half a million of his followers and friends”
on two occasions, specifically in the evenings of Dec. 24 and Dec.
31, 1987.
The PBMA even claims Ruben Sr. had predicted the
day of his death, his supposed resurrection and re-appearance.
It said the PBMA founder “re-appeared” four
days after his death. The exact reason for Ecleo’s death remains
unclear to this day.
Although it was not clear where Ruben Sr.
“re-appeared,” the PBMA claims to have recorded the supposedly
resurrected group founder “discoursing, admonishing, singing, and
embracing close relatives and friends” on tape.
”And (how) do you call a person who, despite his humble origins
and unknown beginnings, proved to have sucessfully cured (the)
ailments of millions of people?” asks the PBMA.
The primer doesn’t quite answer the question.
The PBMA also admits that to other people, their late leader and
founder gave an impression of being (a) misguided psychophant (sic)
or a crazy charlatan, bent on working with invi-sible denizens from
whose powers he made manifest his psychic influence”.
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