Calida hits back at Trillanes over Duterte wealth: Who’s panicking?

“Who’s panicking?” Solicitor General Jose Calida said of Senator Antonio Trillanes IV on Thursday.

In an interview after the Senate hearing into the bills strengthening the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) Calida searched for Trillanes: “Nandyan ba si Senator Trillanes (Is Senator Trillanes here)?”

“Sabi niya nagpa-panic daw ako; sino nagpa-panic? Siya ang nagpa-panic,” he added.

(He said I was panicking; who’s panicking? He’s the one who’s panicking.)

Calida was referring to Trillanes’ recent remark questioning why they were panicking if the senator’s evidence against President Rodrigo Duterte’s alleged unexplained wealth was “garbage.”

READ: Trillanes: If evidence on Duterte wealth is ‘garbage,’ then why panic?

But Trillanes brushed aside the Solicitor General’s comments.

“Sabi niya kasi paalis na siya diba? Kung sana sinabi niya nung hearing edi sana binabaan ko siya kahit na may importante ako na mga ginagawa (He said he was about to leave, right? If he said that at the hearing then I would have gone down for him even though I was doing something important). I believe it’s a total waste of time dealing with people like Calida kasi parang bumababa ‘yung pagkatao mo eh (because it’s like you’re being brought down) when you deal with them,” he said in a separate interview.

The two engaged in a word war after Calida bared that the Office of Ombudsman had already “closed and terminated” the senator’s plunder complaint against Duterte.

“It was a fact-finding investigation, it has not reached the level of preliminary investigation because the evidence was insufficient, kaya ang sabi ko (that’s why I said) it was a garbage evidence,” Calida said.

The OSG chief said he only found out the decision when he wrote a letter to the Ombudsman.

“I wrote a letter to the Ombudsman. I asked them what is the status of this complaint of Senator Trillanes because nothing is heard, everything’s all in the dark,” he said.

For Trillanes, however, the Ombudsman’s decision meant that his complaint was only “archived.”

“Itong abogado na ‘to (Calida) he should know that there is a big difference between a dismissal and kung yung na-archive yung investigation (an archived investigation),” he said.

“Anyway, basta kay Mr. Calida ganito, sa pagkakaalam ko kasama sya sa ICC (International Criminal Court) case, kung ako sa kanya, mag-review na siya nung kanyang depensa at magsasama-sama sila dun ng amo niya,” he added.

(Anyway, what I know is that Calida is part of the ICC case, and if I were him, he should be reviewing his defense and going with his master.)

The senator was referring to the ICC’s launch of a “preliminary examination” into crimes against humanity charges lodged against President Rodrigo Duterte over alleged extrajudicial killings in his drug war. /je

READ: Calida: ICC has no mandate to probe Duterte