The incumbent congresswoman vows she "will not stop" being in politics: "No amount of intrigues can put me down." She is referring to her open feud with Governor Francisco Matugas. It was Matugas who defeated Moises Ecleo in 1992. For the 1995 elections, Matugas refused Glenda's offer for him to take her son, Ruben Jr., as his vice-gubernatorial running mate. As provincial chairman of Lakas, Matugas is ready to challenge Glenda Ecleo with a most unlikely candidate-the former mistress of Ruben Sr.

Reyneria Borja, currently provincial board member, has two children by the former PBMA Divine Master, one of whom she has also named Ruben Jr. Her son is 15 years old. "This is all public knowledge," she says frankly. The fact can even earn her "sympathy votes." Matugas's clever move, if it pushes through-other factions in the party have their own candidates-may mean a division of the PBMA votes.

Both Glenda and Reyneria will ride on the popularity of a dead man, the man they once shared in their lives. Glenda was accepted as the wife of the late Ruben Sr. and was known as his "material wife." But he had relationships with other women, and these women, Borja included, were known as the "spiritual wives."

Since the PBMA tends to be a macho organization, believing in male leadership, it was unthinkable to have Glenda Ecleo at the helm after the death of Ruben Sr. Nevertheless, her role in the Ecleo family is crucial. "I'm the connection outside," she explains.

Glenda's presence in Congress makes for an ideal arrangement. She is the source of her district's Countrywide Development Fund (CDF), more popularly known as pork barrel, which she has not hesitated to use for the benefit of PBMA-controlled areas. Moreover, she has access to the House Speaker, with whom she can discuss party matters. Glenda joined the ruling coalition, Lakas, in 1992, after Fidel Ramos won, but was formerly with the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP) of defeated presidential candidate Ramon Mitra.

Glenda stumbled into politics "by accident." She did not expect to be anyone but the wife of the Dinagat mayor and supreme ruler of the PBMA. But in that position she had a ringside view of local politics, as well as of the impact her husband had on national leaders. "We used to support politicians, mostly from Siargao island," she says. "But we felt that helping them did not bear any fruit. We were only important during election time. We were only vote-getters for them. Politicians, local and national, came to us for solid votes. They took advantage of us. In return, when they won, they did not reciprocate our help. They did not build our roads."

Partly, there was some condescension from the mainland and outside Dinagat towards the PBMA. Some thought its members were a bunch of crazy fanatics. After winning their votes, politicians would again take them for granted.

Hurting from this experience, Ruben Ecleo Sr. decided to take power for himself and his family. This god on earth turned out to be a deft politician. In the early life of the PBMA, in the late 1950s, he realized he could run for public office and be catapulted to political power on the strength of his natural base, the PBMA. "He was aware of what politics could do to legitimize his hold over people," says Surigao historian Fernando Almeda]r.

In his first attempt, Ecleo Sr. ran for mayor of Dinagat town but lost to a very popular politician, Baldomero Miso. After his rather rude introduction to the world of politics, Ecleo Sr. intensified recruitment of members to the PBMA until Dinagat, formerly a scarcely populated place, was bursting at the seams with streams of migrants.

By then Miso, a crafty politician, knew he was in for a whopping defeat if Ecleo ran against him in the next elections. Miso then worked to have the adjacent barrio of Basilis a converted into a municipality. There he ran for mayor and won, leaving Dinagat to Ecleo and his PBMA. In 1963, on his second try at the mayoralty, Ecleo won. That launched his career in politics, cut short only by death. Nevertheless, the magic of Ruben Ecleo Sr. had rubbed off on his successors, Moises and Ruben Jr., and on his wife.

In 1980 Ruben Sr. coaxed Glenda into running for the provincial board. At first, she was shy and disdainful of politics. "I cried," she recalls. "I hated politics." She remembers that her late husband remarked, upon seeing her in tears: "Once you're there, it will be difficult to make you leave."

True to his prophecy, Glenda has been in politics for almost 15 years and is not thinking of retiring. In fact, she wants the Ecleos to remain in politics for a long time to come: "I want my sons to run so that I will have good working relationships with provincial officials. I even spoonfeed my son [Ruben Jr.]. I want teamwork."

Evidently, the teamwork has paid off Records from the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) show that a huge amount from Congresswoman Glenda Ecleo's Countrywide Development Fund, or CDF, went to San Jose, her favored municipality. Out of16 municipalities in the first district, San Jose received the most from the CDF: P1.3 million in 1992; P8.18 million in 1993; and P910,000 in 1994. The last is based on partial data.

Other municipalities received, in August 1993, much smaller sums: P20,000 for San Isidro; P100,000 for Gen. Luna; P60,000 for Dinagat; P90,000 for Del Carmen; P180,000 for Dapa; and P10,000 for Basilisa. In this same batch of disbursements, San Jose, of which her son, Ruben Jr., is mayor, was allotted P3.175 million.

CDF money for San Jose was intended for livelihood cooperatives like the Ruben Ecleo Sr. livelihood cooperative; the Minahang Bayan ng San Jose cooperative (where Ruben Jr. is a shareholder); the Minahang Bayan ng Mamamayan ng Dinagat Island cooperative (which Rep. Ecleo considers one of her business interests); "ethnic cultural development"; infrastructure projects such as the municipal building of San Jose; the San Jose police outpost; completion of public market (funds were released in 1992); concreting of highway and road; repair and rehabilitation of guest house.

Rep. Ecleo listed the Minahang Bayan ng Mamamayan ng Dinagat Island cooperative (henceforth to be referred to as Minahang Bayan/ Dinagat) as one of her "businesses" in her 1992 statement of assets and liabilities submitted to Congress. Her staff at Congress say she's merely a consultant to the cooperative. The Cooperative Development Authority, which registers cooperatives, does not have records of Minahang Bayan/ Dinagat.

A 1993 Commission on Audit (COA) report on San Jose found an anomalous transaction involving Minahang Bayan/Dinagat. In June 1993, Mayor Ruben Ecleo Jr. released P500,000 from the municipality's CDF to Minahang Bayan/Dinagat without any formal and written contract between the cooperative and the municipality. The absence of this "memorandum of agreement," wrote the COA, "exposed government funds to risk of noncollection."

Moreover, Minahang Bayan/Dinagat is not at all qualified to receive money from the CD F. "Only people's organizations or nongovernment organizations could be given financial assistance by the local government," the COA report said. What appears questionable, too, is the recipient of the half-a-million pesos. The disbursement voucher shows that Rodolfo Buray, on behalf ofMinahang Bayan/Dinagat, claimed the money. Buray is the brother of Rep. Glenda Buray Ecleo, according to the congresswoman's staff at the House of Representatives. So far, no accounting of the fund has been made. Apart from Minahang Bayan/Dinagat, another Ecleo stronghold benefited from government money. The PBMA Builders, which holds office in San Jose, is a contractor for local government projects, says a PBMA official. The same source says it was established in 1990. However, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has no files of this group. In effect, the Ecleos were awarding projects to their own organization. It was all in the family.

During our visit to San Jose in October 1994, the public market was still unfinished. Partial documents show that releases for the market had reached P2.8 million as of 1992. As for the municipal building, total cost, as envisioned by Rep. Ecleo, was P5.5 million. Mayor Ruben Ecleo Jr. still holds office in his family's home, the "white house."

Access to funds is made possible by the Ecleos' ties with any party in power. The family has never been with the opposition. They remain on the side of the winners, whoever that may be: from Ferdinand Marcos to Corazon Aquino (through Ramon Mitra in the House of Representatives) to Fidel Ramos.

In their home base, the Ecleos' vehicle for getting around in the political world has always been the PBMA. It began, almost 20 years ago, without political intentions, swept in the faith healing powers of a glib young man.