Judge orders road-rage murder suspect back to jail

JASON IVLER. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines – It’s back to jail for road-rage murder suspect Jason Ivler.

A Quezon City court ordered Friday the transfer of the 29-year-old accused to his cell in Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City after recuperating for nearly four weeks at a government hospital following surgery to reverse an earlier colostomy.

Judge Luisito Cortez of the regional trial court’s Branch 84 gave the directive in open court and also detailed this in a two-page order issued on Friday.

The court acted on the recommendation of Ivler’s surgeon and attending physician at the Quirino Memorial Medical Center, Dr. Romeo Abary.

Abary, in a progress report submitted to the court, said Ivler was fit to leave the hospital after the removal of his surgical stitches.

On December 19, the accused underwent a colostomy reversal operation to allow him to defecate normally instead of through a bag attached to an opening in his abdomen.

This was due to a colostomy performed on him in January 2010 after part of his intestine was damaged in a shootout with agents of the National Bureau of Investigation who had gone to his home to arrest him. He is being tried for the death of Renato Ebarle Jr. whom he gunned down on a Quezon City street in November 2009.

Since 2010, Ivler’s lawyers have repeatedly asked the court to allow him to undergo surgery but it was only last December that Cortez, the third judge to handle the case, granted the request.

Records showed that Ivler, during his 28-day stay at the QMMC, racked up a hospital bill of P526,076, covering the procedure, medicines, room rates and professional fees.

Cortez directed clerk of court Perlita Vitan-Ele to write a check for P500,000 to be paid to the QMMC.

This amount represents the cash deposit that the defense made with the court late last year as one of the conditions for allowing Ivler’s confinement and surgery.

The accused was told to settle the remaining P25,076 balance of his hospital bill and to furnish the court with a copy of the official receipt as proof of payment at the next hearing of his case January  27.

Abary had also recommended that the patient be excused from strenuous physical activities for sixth months.

Consequently, jail warden Senior Insp. John Conrad Basilio was directed to place Ivler in a separate cell near the infirmary while he is recuperating minus “strenuous physical activities.”

The jail facility’s roving physician, Dr. Jaime Claveria, is to keep an eye on him and attend to his medical needs, as well as to submit progress reports every two weeks.

Originally posted at 2:56 p.m.