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Palace chief of staff's son shot dead
Nov 20, 2009 (The Manila Times - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
A son of the President's chief of staff was shot dead by an armed assailant onboard a sports utility vehicle (SUV) with diplomatic license plate after a traffic altercation in Quezon City late Wednesday night. Renato Victor Ebarle Jr., 27, single and a recruitment officer of Manila Peninsula, died from gunshot wounds in the chest and in both arms. He is the son of Undersecretary Renato Ebarle Sr., President Gloria Arroyo's chief of staff.
Malacanang condemned the killing of Undersecretary Ebarle's son but said that it would let the police investigate the incident.
Gary Olivar, presidential spokesman on economic affairs, said that President Arroyo has not issued any order to the police regarding the killing.
Supt. Lino Banaag, the head of the Quezon City Police District-Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit, on Thursday said that the suspected gunman was riding the SUV bearing the diplomatic license plate 20903.
Banaag said that after verifying the license plate with the Highway Patrol Group, they traced the plate to a British subject identified as a certain Staphen Pollard, who is said to be residing along ADB (Asian Development Bank) Avenue in Mandaluyong City (Metro Manila).
Also on Thursday, the police superintendent sent a letter to Executive Director Profilo Mayo of the Office of Protocol and State Visits of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to find more information about and for them to be able to contact Pollard.
Banaag requested a photograph of Pollard and asked the Foreign Affairs department to provide information as to the "extent of [Pollard's] diplomatic immunity" if indeed the suspect was a diplomat.
"We would like to contact him [Pollard] to find out if he was the one driving the SUV that night or somebody else had used it for us to determine the identity of the one responsible for the killing," he said.
Chief Insp. Benjamin Elenzano of the Quezon City police said that after also verifying with the Foreign Affairs department who Pollard was, they found out that the suspected assailant is a diplomat connected with the Asian Development Bank and is covered by diplomatic immunity.
Elenzano said, however, that it could be that another person was driving the SUV on Wednesday night since, based on Pollard's files with Foreign Affairs, the British diplomat is a middle-aged man, while the suspect in the killing is in his late 20s.
Traffic altercation
The incident happened about 11:10 p.m. along Santolan Road and Ortigas Avenue in Barangay Valencia.
Senior Police Officer 2 Edgar Tiodin, who was driving his Isuzu Crosswind along Santolan Road on Wednesday night, told police investigators that he saw the assailant and the victim seemingly having an altercation on the road while onboard their vehicles.
Upon reaching an area near Ortigas Avenue, the police officer said that he saw the suspect's SUV block the path of Ebarle's blue Toyota Land Cruiser with license plate RET 565 and security plate 12OPCS.
Then the suspect reportedly got off his vehicle, drew a handgun and shot the victim three times, killing Ebarle. The suspect then got back to his SUV and sped off toward San Juan City (Metro Manila).
Tiodin said that he tried to go after the SUV until the vehicle entered New Manila in Quezon City and disappeared.
He described the suspected assailant to be a foreigner, 25 to 30 years old, about 5'8" in height, bald-headed and had a tattoo on his right arm.
Girlfriend and witness
Elenzano and Banaag said that the young Ebarle had just seen his girlfriend home in the Camp Aguinaldo area and was driving home to New Manila when the incident happened. Camp Aguinaldo houses the headquarters of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
The victim's girlfriend, Kristina Tabas, told police that she was talking with the victim on his cellular phone as he drove home, when after about 30 minutes, his phone went dead and she could no longer contact him.
Worried, she decided to drive to the victim's house to see if he was all right, and came upon the scene of the shooting.
Another witness, Dr. Joan Bonifacio of Makati Rescue, Carmona branch, said that she came upon the victim bleeding behind the wheel and she got down from her car to render assistance but her examination showed that the victim was already dead.
WITH REPORT FROM JUN MARCOS
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