A GOVERNMENT official’s son was shot dead in his car on Boni Serrano and Benitez in Quezon City Wednesday night, and apparently by a foreigner, police said yesterday.
Renato Ebarle Jr., 27, son of Undersecretary Renato Ebarle Sr., who works in the Office of the Presidential Chief of Staff, was shot in the chest and left arm with a .45-cal. pistol, said Chief Insp. Benjamin Elenzano Jr., head of Quezon City’s Homicide section.
He said witnesses saw a man who looked like a foreigner and aged about 25 alight from a blue Honda CRV with diplomatic plates (20903) to fire on Ebarle’s Toyota Land Cruiser.
“They said they saw the two vehicles nearly colliding some distance away from the scene of the shooting,” Elenzano said.
Land Transportation records showed that the Honda was registered to Stephen Pollard of the Asian Development Bank, who appeared to be in his 60s.
“This is a serious and tragic incident,” Ann Quon, head of the bank’s external relations section, said in an e-mailed statement.
“Given that the matter is currently under police investigation, ADB is unable to make any comment on the issue. [But] “Based on the information available so far, we do not believe that ADB staff was involved in the incident.”
Elenzano confirmed that the Honda was registered to Pollard, but police would have problems arresting him assuming he was guilty because ADB employees enjoyed diplomatic immunity.
“That was the reason we immediately went to the [Foreign Affairs Department], and we were told that ADB staff and employees were immune from suits,” he said.
In a case before the Supreme Court, Foreign Affairs cited a deal between the Philippines and Japan establishing the Asian Development Bank in the Philippines and granting immunity to the bank’s employees. The high court agreed, but in 2000 it said such immunity was not absolute but applied only to “acts performed by [the employees] in their official capacity.”
A Web site describes Pollard as a principal economist with the bank’s Pacific Department.
“A UK and Australian national, Mr. Pollard joined ADB in 1996 as a Project Economist in what was then known as the Office of Pacific Operations,” the Web site said.
“He worked for the Poverty Unit of ADB’s Strategy and Policy Department from 2000 to 2001, but apart from that period he has always worked with ADB’s Pacific Department.”
The Web site said Pollard started his career with the World Bank in Malawi, and that he had over 33 years’ experience as a practicing development economist—including 23 years working in the Pacific.
