MANILA, Philippines — Solicitor General Jose Calida and his family have asked the Supreme Court (SC) to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) that would prevent the conduct of a legislative inquiry on their alleged conflict of interest stemming from the security service contracts between several government agencies and their family-owned Vigilant Investigative and Security Agency.
In a 39-page petition filed before the SC last Aug. 14, Calida, along with his wife Milagros, sons Josef and Mark Jorel and daughter Michelle, filed a petition for certiorari and prohibition with urgent application for issuance of a TRO and/or preliminary injunction against Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV.
Calida currently holds 90,000 shares of Vigilant. Last June 30, 2016 he resigned as chairman and president of Vigilant.
On Aug. 1, he received a letter sent by Trillanes inviting him to appear at a public hearing/inquiry for the specific purpose of threshing out the various issues arising from the Proposed Senate Resolution 760 that covered the issue on the conflict of interest of Calida, since his company reportedly bagged security deals with national government agencies.
The Calidas asked the SC to issue a TRO restraining, enjoining and prohibiting respondent, or any person acting on his behalf, from conducting the intended legislative inquiry on Aug. 16 or such other dates that the inquiries might be transferred or rescheduled.
The Calida family also asked the SC to prevent Trillanes from initiating or conducting any other inquiry against the petitioners on his own or otherwise without legal authority from the Senate and law.
They also asked the SC to declare as void and unconstitutional the Letters dated Aug. 1 because these were issued in Trillanes’ sole capacity only or without the authority of the Senate or any of its committees and for serving no legislative purpose.
Before the SC, the petitioners raised the issues on whether Trillanes had any authority even in the absence of a Senate resolution; and whether the committee on civil service, government reorganization and professional regulation exercises jurisdiction to investigate specific conflicts of interests of certain individual government officials.
“The respondent has no legal authority to conduct investigations about the accountability of specific public officers with a prosecutorial outlook. No Senate committee possesses that authority to conduct such an investigation because that would not be in the nature of a legislative inquiry,” he said.
They would also want the High Court to decide on whether Trillanes’ intended inquiry has pre-determined that there exists a conflict of interests on the part of SolGen Calida and whether that predetermination precludes the senator’s impartiality or a good faith legislative intent.
They also asked the SC to take judicial notice of public reports alleging that Trillanes is motivated by his political biases and personal hostility against the petitioner SolGen Calida and President Duterte.
Yesterday, the SC gave Trillanes a non-extendable period of 10 days to give his comment.
Two senators said yesterday the Senate committees tasked to handle the inquiry into the government contracts secured by the security agency owned by Calida and his family could proceed unless a temporary restraining order is issued by the SC.
Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon said that generally, the SC, “on the principle of respect to a co-equal branch and the principle of separation of powers between the three branches of government, will refrain from interfering in the work of Congress, unless there is a clear showing of grave abuse of discretion.”
While he has not read the petition of Calida, Drilon aired his suspicion that the Solicitor General is questioning the jurisdiction of the Senate and its civil service committee to inquire into the security agreements his security agency signed with the government agencies.
“If no TRO is issued, the hearing of the civil service committee can proceed,” Drilon said.
Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III also said the concerned committees would proceed with its hearings on the issue “unless there is a TRO from the Supreme Court.”
Senate Resolution 760 that served as the basis for the inquiry into the matter was filed by the minority Senators Drilon, Antonio Trillanes IV, Paolo Benigno Aquino IV, Francis Pangilinan, Risa Hontiveros and Leila de Lima.
The resolution was actually referred to the Senate Blue Ribbon committee, which originally scheduled the initial hearing yesterday.
The Senate committee on civil service, government reorganization and professional regulation, chaired by Trillanes, was designated as the secondary committee. The hearing was eventually cancelled. – With Marvin Sy