POLICE have launched a manhunt for a 27-year-old man believed to be the killer of Renato Ebarle Jr., also 27, in a road rage shooting Wednesday night.
Officials yesterday said Jason Ivler, the stepson of an Asian Development Bank official, was considered armed and dangerous and was likely still hiding in Metro Manila. Police were also looking for Ivler’s half-brother Colby, 22.
“Printouts of Ivler’s photo... have been circulated to different PNP units in Metro Manila as well as in major airport and seaports to assist in the manhunt,” said police spokesman Chief Supt. Leonardo Espina.
Ebarle, son of Undersecretary Renato Ebarle Sr. of the Office of the Executive Secretary in Malacañang, was shot dead before midnight Wednesday after a traffic altercation on Boni Serrano and Granada in Quezon City.
Witnesses said a “foreign-looking” man alighted from a blue Honda CRV with diplomatic plates (20903) and fired several shots at Ebarle, who was behind the wheel of a Toyota Land Cruiser.
Ebarle suffered three gunshot wounds from a .45 cal. handgun and died on the spot.
The suspect’s stepfather, Stephen Pollard, an economist working for the Asian Development Bank and the registered owner of the Honda CRV, told investigators he would help find Ivler.
Records from the police’s Firearms and Explosives Division showed there were no firearms registered under Jason Ivler’s name.
At a police briefing, Director General Jesus Verzosa said that ADB officials enjoyed diplomatic immunity, but their dependents did not.
Records showed Ivler was involved in a car crash in August 2004 that killed Undersecretary Nestor Ponce Jr., then presidential assistant for resettlement.
Ivler, at the time a 22-year-old psychology student at the Hawaii Pacific University, was driving a Toyota Prado that smashed head-on into an Isuzu Trooper carrying Ponce, his wife Evangeline and their driver in Pasig.
Ivler was charged with homicide and arrested when he tried to board a ferry in an apparent bid to escape to Malaysia.
Chief Insp. Benjamin Elenzano Jr., head of the Quezon City police homicide section, said Pollard denied any involvement in the shooting and said the key to the CRV had been “missing for a few days.”
“Since he [Pollard] claimed the key had been kept in his house all along, it’s likely that a member of his family took the vehicle,” Elenzano said.
Jason and Colby are sons of Marlene Aguilar from a previous marriage. Aguilar, now married to Pollard, is a sister of singer Freddie Aguilar.
