What went before

Jason Ivler is charged with killing Renato Victor Ebarle Jr. in a traffic altercation on Santolan Road, Quezon City, on Nov. 18, 2009.

Ebarle, son of an undersecretary for the Office of the Presidential Chief of Staff, was shot dead inside his sports utility vehicle (SUV) after nearly colliding with the SUV Ivler was driving.

Ivler fled the scene after shooting Ebarle at close range.

He was later identified by the police after the SUV he was driving was traced to his stepfather Stephen Pollard, a British economist at the Asian Development Bank. Ivler is the son of Pollard’s wife Marlene Aguilar from a previous marriage.

A manhunt was launched for the “armed and dangerous” Filipino-American, with P1 million offered to anyone who could provide information leading to his arrest, after police failed to find him even after raiding three houses in Quezon City in the same month.

Murder charges were filed against Ivler in the Quezon City prosecutor’s office days later. On Dec. 23, a Quezon City judge issued an arrest warrant, without bail, for Ivler.

Two months after going into hiding, Ivler was arrested on Jan. 18, 2010, inside his mother’s house at Blue Ridge A Subdivision in Quezon City after engaging arresting officers in a shoot-out.

In May, Ronan Masacupan of the National Bureau of Investigation told Judge Luisito Cortez of Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 84 that the pistol found at Aguilar’s house where Ivler was arrested was the same firearm used to shoot Ebarle Jr.

Source: Inquirer Archives