EDITORIAL - Very important suspects

The mother’s concern is understandable. If your son is wanted for a vehicular accident that left a presidential adviser dead, you’ll probably want to shield the homicide suspect from the ugly consequences.

What is galling is that the suspect, 22-year-old Jason Aguilar Ivler, nearly sneaked out of the country on a boat to Malaysia escorted by two policemen, one of them with the rank of superintendent. Immigration authorities claimed that when they apprehended Ivler at the port of Zamboanga, Superintendent Antonio Gumiran of the Philippine National Police Directorate for Operations even tried to bribe them with $5,000.

The good news is that the alleged bribe offer was turned down, Ivler was caught, and Gumiran faces summary dismissal together with his fellow officer, Senior Inspector Jeff Briones Uy of the PNP Special Action Force. Shortly after Ivler was presented to the press, however, he was granted bail by Pasig City Judge Rowena Modesto San Pedro. The homicide case is bailable, but bail can be rejected when there is an attempt by an accused to escape. And Ivler, a Filipino-American whose stepfather works for the Asian Development Bank and therefore enjoys some diplomatic immunity, clearly planned to leave the country through the southern backdoor.

Ivler had figured in a head-on collision in Ortigas that killed Presidential Assistant for Resettlement Nestor Ponce Jr. and injured the victim’s wife last Aug. 8. Ivler’s mother refused to turn in her son, saying she feared for his life. Ponce’s relatives obviously no longer need to worry about the victim’s life; what they want now is justice, which those two police officers tried to undermine.

Ivler is hardly the first suspect to get VIP treatment from law enforcers. Bebs Reyes, whose father works for the Bureau of Immigration, was released after being questioned by the National Bureau of Investigation in connection with the rape and murder of bank teller Candice Castro in Manila. It took a long time before Reyes showed up for questioning; authorities did not seem to be interested in looking for him. Now the NBI, which like the BI is under the Department of Justice, says it is hunting down Reyes after a court issued a warrant for his arrest in connection with the murder. Perhaps Reyes can meet up with Ivler, now free on bail, in Zamboanga City where they can take a boat together to Malaysia.