MANILA – An American national, tagged as the principal suspect in the “road rage” slaying of the son of a ranking official of the Arroyo administration, continues to elude police and other lawmen sent to arrest him.
A spokesman of the Philippine National Police (PNP) said Jason Aguilar Ivler could not be found by a special team of policemen and agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) who were also ordered to take all steps to prevent him from leaving the country.
The spokesman said the lawmen raided but failed to find Ivler in the two family residences as well as his known hangouts in Metro Manila.
He warned the lawmen are ready to retaliate once Ivler is accosted by resists arrest and fires at them.He also pointed out this policy is different from a “shoot-to-kill” order but noted the agents will observe operational procedures that once their lives are in danger, they have not choice but to retaliate and protect themselves.
Ivler is the main suspect in the killing of Renato Ebarle Jr., son and namesake of Renato Ebarle, the deputy secretary in the office of the presidential chief of staff based in Malacanang.
Based on the testimony of a policeman, Ivler shot and killed Ebarle, a recruitment officer of a five-star hotel in Metro Manila, in what police believe to be a case of “road rage” arising from a minor traffic altercation involving the two late Wednesday night in suburban Quezon City, Metro Manila.
Ivler, who has been described as “armed and dangerous,” has so far remained elusive despite an appeal from his mother, writer Marlene Aguilar Pollard, to surrender and give his side if he was really involved in the Ebarle killing.
Pollard aired the appeal during the launch of her book, “Warriors of Heaven,” at the Cultural Center of the Philippines Saturday night.
Ivler is Pollard’s son by a previous marriage to an American national. She is now married to Stephen Pollard, a British national and senior economist at the Asian Development Bank based in Manila.
In Malacanang, Press Secretary Cerge Remonde said the PNP and the NBI were ordered to leave no stone unturned in ensuring the arrest of Ivler, who is reportedly out on bail while being tried in court for the death of another Malacanang official, Nestor Ponce Jr., the presidential adviser on resettlement in 2004.
Police said Ponce was killed when a car driven by Ivler rammed into the vehicle of the Malacanang official, which also resulted in injuries to his wife and daughter.
While confined in a hospital in Metro Manila for the injuries he sustained, Ivler escaped but was arrested a few days later in Zamboanga City while about to board a ferry bound for Malaysia, apparently to escape criminal prosecution.
In the Ebarle killing, police said they traced Ivler to the blue diplomatic plate assigned to one of the cars assigned by the ADB to Pollard.
Earlier, the Department of Foreign Affairs announced that while Pollard enjoys diplomatic immunity because he is an executive of the ADB, such immunity does not extend to Ivler as his stepson.
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