NEWSFLASH

BUTUAN CITY: ECLEOS WIN ILLEGAL LOGGING CASE; TACLOBAN: 28 MAYORS PROBE

BUTUAN CITY, October 17, 2002 (STAR) By Ben Serrano - It’s not all bad news for the Ecleos.

Surigao del Norte Rep. Glenda Ecleo and her son Ruben, a former mayor and supreme master of the Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Association (PBMA) who is detained in Cebu for his wife’s murder, have been cleared of illegal logging charges.

In a nine-page decision, Judge Diomedes Eviota of the Surigao City Regional Trial Court Branch 32, said the police and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources failed to present sufficient evidence against the Ecleos.

The case stemmed from the seizure by police and DENR agents of hundreds of pieces of yakal and lawaan products valued at P66,771.30 in Barangay Navarro, Basilisa, Surigao del Norte on Nov. 24, 1994.

The Ecleos were alleged to be the owners of the "hot" lumber which was to be used in making a motor launch.

Rep. Ecleo denied owning the motor launch, although she admitted that then Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Angel Alcala had allowed the donation of the lumber to build the vessel for her official work.

She also denied that the man making the motor launch was her employee or a hired worker.

Eviota said there was no hard evidence that the Ecleos owned the motor launch, saying the accusations against mother and son were plain hearsay.

Rep. Ecleo is facing an electoral protest before the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal, while her son is awaiting trial for the killing of his wife Alona Bacolod.

***29 Eastern Visayas mayors probed on drug links By Miriam Garcia Desacada The Philippine Star 10/17/2002

TACLOBAN CITY — At least 29 municipal mayors in Eastern Visayas are reportedly being investigated by police intelligence agents for allegedly being involved in the illegal drug trade to fund their political coffers, sources said.

The mayors are reportedly from Leyte and the three Samar provinces. The sources refused to identify them pending the investigation.

Sought for comment, William Paler, regional director of the Department of the Interior and Local Government, said this is not impossible among local government executives since certain law enforcers are also involved in illegal drugs.

"This might not be true and might also be true, so let us give the responsibility to the law enforcers to arrest them," he said.

"They are answerable under the law kapag mahuli sila (when they are arrested)," Paler said.

A police officer said the probability that mayors are involved in the illegal drug trade is 90 percent, but since there must be due process, the police have to gather strong evidence first before taking any legal action.

Police said there is an easy and big market for shabu, thus prompting almost anybody to go into the illegal trade.

Last Oct. 4, Senate President Franklin Drilon said during an indignation rally against illegal drugs that some nine million Filipinos are hooked on them and that 75 percent of crimes are drug-related.

Drilon said the illegal drug menace is a major problem the country faces just like the Abu Sayyaf.

He, however, said he is not convinced that some politicians are drug protectors or are directly involved in the illegal trade.<