De Lima: Calida is the new ‘role model’ in PH gov’t corruption

FILE: Opposition Senator Leila De Lima on Tuesday, June 5, named Solicitor General Jose Calida as the new “role model” in government’s corruption after his family-owned security firm amassed millions of pesos in government contracts. (Photo: Senate of the Philippines/Facebook)

Opposition Senator Leila De Lima on Tuesday, June 5, named Solicitor General Jose Calida as the new “role model” in government’s corruption after his family-owned security firm amassed millions of pesos in government contracts.

“Solicitor General Jose Calida is the Duterte Administration’s new poster boy on corruption, not for going against it, but for mainstreaming it in the national psyche,” De Lima said.

De Lima added that Calida has made making a profit out of the government “a practice worth emulating,” just like how President Rodrigo Duterte has made extrajudicial killings “normal and acceptable” as a government policy.

According to a Rappler report on May 27, Calida’s security firm Vigilant Investigative and Security Agency Incorporated won 10 government contracts between August 2016 and January 2018. The Department of Justice (DOJ), which prepares the budget of the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), got two of these contracts amounting to P12.4 million.

Calida said he resigned as chairman and president of Vigilant on May 30, 2016 before he assumed office as solicitor general; however, documents from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) showed that Calida still owns 60 percent of company shares, while his wife and three children own 10 percent each.

In her statement, De Lima said Calida is making sure that he benefits from the public’s money while he is still in power.

“For this reason alone, it is better for Calida to stay in office, in order to remind Filipinos every day of the rapaciousness of government officials who do not shrink at the mention of their name being involved in corruption, but instead brag about the stocks they own in the company doing business with government,” the senator said.

De Lima slammed the Solicitor General for violating the Constitution to carry out his personal motives.

“The Constitution provides that no Cabinet member or their deputies shall participate in any business, or be financially interested in any contract with, or in any franchise, or special privilege granted by the Government or any subdivision, agency, or instrumentality thereof,” she said.

“By being the majority stockholder of a security agency that has bagged multiple government contracts, Calida is spitting on this constitutional provision,” she added.

The opposition senator likewise criticized the Supreme Court (SC) for voting in favor of the quo warranto petition filed by Calida against former Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno last May 11.

“Maybe the Court should be reminded that this is the Solicitor General they are rooting for, one who has no qualms and second thoughts in making a business out of his government position for his own family’s personal enrichment while he is in power,” De Lima stressed.

“This is the man the SC is telling us to trust with his professionalism and independence, while they crucify their Chief Justice for unfiled SALNs [Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net worth],” she added.

De Lima, a former Justice Secretary, noted that by letting Calida run away from his crimes, the country is “not only normalizing thievery and mainstreaming plunder as a way of life in secret, but out in the open, where enterprising public officials brag about their ill-gotten wealth as the legitimate fruit of being in power, being corrupt, and being shameless about it.”

The senator earlier called Calida a hypocrite for insisting that there is no conflict of interest in his family-owned security agency’s P150-million worth of government contracts.

De Lima said he was “disturbed” that the solicitor general gave “undue advantage to his family’s security business, thereby profiting from people’s money.”

She also asked Calida to immediately step down from his post because of this corruption anomaly.