Saying that firing public officials accused of corruption is not enough, opposition Senator Risa Hontiveros on Monday challenged President Rodrigo Duterte to sack Solicitor General Jose Calida and file the appropriate charges against him.
“I challenge President Duterte to prove his anti-corruption rhetoric. I challenge him to not only fire Mr. Calida but also to file the necessary charges against him,” Hontiversos aid.
Hontiveros issued the statement following reports that Calida’s family-owned security agency bagged P150 million worth of government contracts.
The removal of Calida and the filing of cases against him, Hontiveros said, are important steps
in “rebuilding the country’s damaged institutions.”
After the removal of Vitaliano Aguirre from the Department of Justice, she said, Calida’s dismissal is most appropriate.
“We cannot tolerate public officials who coddle and give special treatment to drug lords and high-profile criminals, or in Mr. Calida’s case, a solicitor general who lawyers for plunderers like pork barrel mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles and the Marcoses, and a Solicitor General whose personal businesses profit from the government,“ Hontiveros said.
Hontiveros also slammed Duterte’s “fire and recycle policy” in which he reappoints people he fired after accusing them of anomalies.
She said recycling corrupt public officials is recycling corruption.
“Corrupt public officers, who have been shielded from calls of transparency and accountability, are non-recyclable,” Hontiveros said.
Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque, however, said it was not illegal for Calida to own shares of Vigilant Investigative and Security Agency Inc., which bagged lucrative government contracts.
While the solicitor general owned at least 60 percent share of VISAI, Calida was not the approving authority of those contracts, Roque said.
“A conflict of interest only arises if the solicitor general is the approving authority of the multi-million peso contracts,” Roque said.
He added that allies of ousted chief justice Maria Lourdes Sereno could be behind the attacks on Calida, who had filed a quo warranto case against her before the Supreme Court that eventually unseated her.
A complaint against Calida was filed by a Sereno supporter before the Office of the Ombudsman, accusing him of a conflict of interest.
The complaint also cited an alleged extramarital affair and a bias for the Marcos family.