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Cult leader healthy enough for jail, doctor tells court

INQ7.net, Philippines
July 15, 2006
Jolene Bulambot, Jhunnex Napallacan
newsinfo.inq7.net

ReligionNewsBlog.com • Saturday July 15, 2006

CEBU CITY — A cardiologist has testified in court that controversial cult leader Ruben Ecleo Jr. is fit to go back to jail, citing his medical findings that the supreme master of the Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Association has no significant heart disease.

Private prosecutors on Thursday presented Dr. Generoso Matiga, an internist specializing in cardiology from the Perpetual Succor Hospital, to testify on his findings after being asked by Regional Trial Court Judge Geraldine Econg to conduct medical examinations on Ecleo.

Ecleo, who is facing a parricide case after being accused of killing his wife Alona Bacolod-Ecleo in January 2002, was allowed to post bail last year after complaining of chest pains. His doctors said he was a “walking time bomb.”

Lawyer Frits Quiñanola, one of the private prosecutors, had asked the judge to order another medical examination of Ecleo to determine the cult leader’s actual physical condition while also asking the court to revoke his bail bond.

Quiñanola said earlier that the private prosecutors believed Ecleo was healthy and physically fit based on their observation of the accused during hearings.

Ecleo failed to attend the hearing on Friday after his counsel manifested that their client could not come because of the typhoon in Luzon. Ecleo, his lawyers claimed, was currently residing in Manila while undergoing regular medical checkup at the Makati Medical Center.

Matiga, in his direct examination on Thursday, said Ecleo did not suffer from any significant coronary disease and that his vital signs appeared normal while being subjected to medical tests on June 22. Ecleo, he said, went through a two-dimensional (2D) echocardiogram and a 30-minute treadmill stress test.