"Armed and dangerous" and an ADB bureaucrat

Nov. 23, 2009


“Armed and dangerous”


“Armed and dangerous” is how the police describe a Filipino-American, Jason Ivler. He has been implicated in two major killings. Both his victims involved ranking officials of Malacañang, the Office of the President, the center of political power in the Philippines.
The way I understand “armed and dangerous”, it is a code word for “kill him, if necessary”, that is, because the suspect tried to shoot it out with lawmen or was trying to escape while shooting recklessly into the air or at the pursuing lawmen. Anyway, “armed and dangerous” gives policemen a lot of flexibility in handling a suspect, especially of the Jason Ivler type and especially, if the reputation and prestige of the much-maligned Philippine National Police are at stake, which is the case in the Ivler criminal offense.
Ivler’s first victim was former Congressman Nestor Ponce, a good friend of mine and the brother-in-law of a classmate of mine in high school. Ponce and his wife, Evangeline, were driving to Tagaytay one early Sunday morning in August 2004 to pray that their son pass the bar, when his Isuzu trooper was slammed by a wayward Land Cruiser coming from the opposite or northward side of the C5 Ortigas flyover. Ponce died instantly, from massive loss of blood due to injuries. He was the presidential adviser on housing of President Arroyo. The driver of the Toyota – Jason Ivler.
The other victim is Renato Victor Ebarle Jr., son of undersecretary Renato Ebarle Sr. of Malacañang. The young Ebarle was shot pointblank by a man who looked like Ivler on Nov. 18 at a usually busy intersection in Quezon City. A policeman saw the incident and gave chase to the killer who disappeared in one of the garages in upscale New Manila.
The suspect’s car had a diplomatic plate which later was traced to a British economist working with the Asian Development Bank. The Brit, who goes by the name Stephen Pollard, is the stepfather of Ivler. Now, ADB staff, especially, if they are foreigners, carry what is euphemistically called “diplomatic immunity” –- a code word for being able to bring imported goods into the country tax-free and for committing minor traffic infractions, like illegal parking, without being bothered by the police. But a murder? How could a large country middle-class country like the Philippines (No. 12 in the world in size of population) sanction a murder in the guise of diplomatic immunity?
But that is exactly what the British bureaucrat of ADB did -- invoke diplomatic immunity in a murder involving a car that carried his name and his personal blue plate. He went to the police station, accompanied by a nattily dressed lawyer, with the air of haughtiness and contempt only a dirty British colonialist in old India could sport. He refused to cooperate with police investigators whom he treated like they were born yesterday. This is the kind of arrogance that in other developing countries with very high self-esteem would trigger a national outrage and even a revolution.

The ADB is morally bound to convince its so-called economist to cooperate. ADB has had the habit of lecturing borrowers like the Philippines on such human values like equality before the law, good governance and no-corruption. Such moralizing is in exchange for millions of dollars of loans that the Philippines doesn’t actually need. How much does the ADB extend in loans to the Philippines annually? $2 billion? How much do overseas Filipinos remit to the Philippines annually? $17 billion.
ADB should be the last institution on earth to exploit a country’s weakness as a soft state. The bank itself is a massive failure. When it first opened shop in Manila, more than 30 years ago, the Philippines was the second most prosperous country in Asia, after Japan. I used to pound the ADB beat in the 1970s when it was still in Makati. It seems to me its values deteriorated over the years and I will give you a hint why.

More than three decades later, the number of poor Filipinos actually tripled, to 30 million, and many consider the Philippines an economic basket case and a soft state – unable to enforce its laws, instill discipline among its citizens, and earn the respect of people working in places like the ADB, whose tennis court is ground zero for the worst pollution in the Philippines.
“Soft state” is a Myrdal concept. This refers to governance system, plagued by corruption and rent-seeking. Myrdal viewed this issue as one of the greatest barriers to economic progress in developing nations and advocated dramatic government reform for struggling countries.

It’s your turn to speak, ADB.

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