Calida: Malversation and misconduct charges are fabricated

Responding to the complaint filed against him at the Office of the Ombudsman,  Solicitor General Jose Calida has dismissed as a “big fat lie” allegations of his extramarital affair and his alleged diversion of some P1.8 million in public funds to his alleged mistress.

“That’s a big fat lie.  This woman (complainant) admits that she has no evidence, she who alleges must prove it,” Calida said in an interview with CNN Philippines on Thursday.

“What she is saying is actually a vicious, malicious concoction.  They are now fabricating charges against me, they want to destroy my family,” he added.

Calida added that once he receives a copy of the complaint, he will answer it and file the necessary cases against the complainant.

“I will not forgive them for that.  There will be a day of reckoning.  I’m just waiting that the charges would be given to me so I can answer them point by point,” Calida said.

“(I will file cases) against those who are maligning me, slandering me, libeling me,” he added.

Photos of Calida with a younger woman insinuating an affair between the two went viral on social media sites.

A previous Inquirer.net report said that a complaint against Calida for graft, malversation of funds, and misconduct was filed by Jocelyn Marie Acosta Niperos, an avid supporter of former Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.

Niperos was also one of the founding members of the group Silent Majority that has supported Liberal Party’s standard bearers Mar Roxas and Vice President Leni Robredo in the last 2016 National Elections and has criticized the current administration.

READ: Sereno supporters sue Calida for graft, malversation, misconduct

Calida believes Niperos’ move was in response to the Office of the Solicitor General’s filing of a quo warranto petition against Sereno.  Sereno was removed from office after Supreme Court associate justices voted 8-6, in favor of Calida’s petition.

READ: Peers kick Sereno out via Calida’s QW

“They are angry with me because I won the quo warranto case, and ousted their poster chief justice,” Calida said.

“Had I lost the case they would have not attacked me like this.  The one who viciously accused me in the Ombudsman admitted that she has no proof, and admitted also that she is rooting for Attorney Sereno,” he added.  /muf

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