CEBU (Philippines), June 19: At least 23 people died in a night of violence which erupted as Philippine police went to arrest the politically well-connected leader of a cult accused of murdering his wife, police said on Wednesday.

Ruben Ecleo finally surrendered on Wednesday after a night of bloody fighting between police and his armed followers on the southern island of Dinagat, regional police chief Alberto Olario told local radio by telephone from the island.

Sixteen members of Ecleo’s pseudo-Christian Philippine Benevolent Missionary Association (PBMA), including his co-defendant in the murder case, Juriven Padero, were slain after they tried to prevent police from serving an arrest warrant on the two defendants, Olario added.

A policeman was also killed and two others were wounded, Chief Superintendent Olario said.

He said the police have secured a hilltop mansion where Ecleo had holed up shortly after he was indicted for the January murder of his wife Alona in this central city of Cebu.

A massive police force assaulted the island on Tuesday night to serve the court warrant.

As the operation was underway on Dinagat, a suspected Ecleo follower attacked the home of Ecleo’s in-laws in Mandaue district near here, killing Ecleo’s father-in-law Elpidio Bacolod, his wife Rosalia, their son Ben and daughter Evelyn.

A neighbor was also killed while Bacolod’s other son Ricky was wounded, police said.

The gunman was himself slain after a firefight with government forces, while a government militiaman was wounded, police said.

Ben Bacolod was a government witness in the murder case against Ecleo, police said.

Ecleo, 47, is considered to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ by at least a million PBMA followers in the central and southern Philippines.

He is also a former mayor of a town on Dinagat. His mother, Glenda Ecleo, is a member of the Philippines House of Representatives.—AFP