Second judge inhibits self from Ivler murder trial

MANILA, Philippines - A Quezon City judge has inhibited himself from trying the murder charges filed against road rage suspect Jason Ivler, but junked an appeal of Ivler’s mother questioning a P20,000 fine for indirect contempt.

This is the second time a judge inhibited himself from Ivler’s murder trial. Judge Bayani Vargas of Regional Trial Court Branch 219, in an order dated Aug. 5, ordered the reraffle of the murder charge in connection with the killing of Renato Victor Ebarle Jr. to another court.

Before the case was raffled off to Vargas’ sala, Judge Alexander Balut inhibited himself from hearing the case following repeated pleas from the prosecution.

According to Vargas, he granted the petition for his inhibition to avoid any suspicion of bias on the part of the judge.

“There is no showing of acts or conduct of the judge clearly indicative of arbitrariness or prejudice before the latter can be branded the stigma of being biased and partial,” the order stated.

Ivler’s camp had asked for Vargas’s inhibition from the case, citing alleged instances of bias such as the court’s alleged “dilly dallying” on the accused’s appeal for hospital confinement for an abdominal surgery.

According to Vargas, he believed that deferring the operation for the reversal of Ivler’s colostomy would work for the accused’s benefit and is not as risky.

Ivler’s mother, Marlene Aguilar-Pollard, had asked the court to reconsider its order citing her for indirect contempt and the imposition of a P20,000 fine after she challenged Vargas to a fistfight in a March 23 hearing.

“These words are contemptuous per se which was even aired on national television, and if others do not see it that way, the court does not anymore know what is contemptuous,” Vargas said in relation to the imposition of the fine.

He added even without Aguilar-Pollard’s comment on the incident, her actuations on that day were already “degrading.”

Ivler was arrested and injured following a shootout at his mother’s house in January 2010. He underwent a colostomy, which allows him to defecate through a bag.