Court junks Ivler plea to reconsider detention order

MANILA, Philippines - The court hearing the murder charges against Jason Ivler stood its ground on its order detaining the suspect at the Quezon City Jail despite his medical condition, junking the motion for reconsideration filed by the defense.

“The court maintains its legal ruling in the order dated April 6. There are no new matters or issues which would warrant reweighing the ruling where the questioned order is anchored,” Judge Alexander Balut of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 76 said in an order dated last Tuesday.

Ivler, who stands accused of the murder of Renato Victor Ebarle Jr on Nov. 18, 2009, was discharged from the Quirino Memorial Medical Center on April 6 and transferred to the city jail.

He was confined at the hospital after he underwent surgery for injuries he sustained in a gun battle with arresting National Bureau of Investigation agents on Jan. 18.

Ivler’s lawyer, Alexis Medina, questioned the order, saying that what the doctors, who were consulted by the court, recommended was just hospital discharge and not detention at the city jail. Medina said the doctors recommended the discharge for home care, and the city jail does not have the facility to care for a person with a colostomy.

Because of his colostomy, Ivler is defecating through a bag and not through his anus. Last week, his camp asked the permission of the court for him to be admitted to the Philippine General Hospital today for a work up leading to an operation on June 14 to reverse his colostomy.

But the motion failed to comply with the court’s “three-day notice rule” and could not be heard last Friday in time for the supposed confinement today.

As this developed, Balut also junked the motion of the prosecution asking him to inhibit from the case.

“In conducting the proceedings in this case, the undersigned conscientiously believes to have acted within the parameters of the Constitution, the law and the concepts of fair play and orderly administration of justice,” he said.