For most of its 17 years, Vigilant Investigative and Security Agency Inc. owned and operated by Solicitor General Jose C. Calida was a medium-size company bagging “Agency Fees” of under P10 million yearly.

That changed dramatically when Calida’s close ally Rodrigo Duterte became president and appointed Calida his Solicitor General.

In the first 18 months of Duterte’s presidency, Vigilant won 14 government contracts which gave the company a jaw-dropping ₱261 million worth of Agency Fees.

“Agency fees” – according to Vigilant’s annual financial reports submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission – are “revenues”, described as “fees received from clients arising from rendering of Security services.”

Remarkably, the P261 million Agency Fees in 18 months – July 2016 to January 2018 – are nearly double what Vigilant grossed in the previous 10 years – from 2005 to 2015.

In other words, it took Vigilant 10 years to gross ₱134 million worth of Agency Fees. But only 18 months to gross P261 million solely from winning government contracts when Duterte came to power.

Later, in Part 2 of this Three Part Series, I will show you how some government contracts that Vigilant won under the Duterte administration could place Calida in a direct conflict of interest situation because he’s the SolGen.

Finally, Part 3 of this Series is entitled – Psssst, SolGen Calida, you seem to have committed a serious violation you charged CJ Sereno with

But right now, I’d like to show you the breakdown of the Agency Fees I gathered from Vigilant’s financial statements from 2005 to 2015. Its financial statements for the years 2016 and 2017 are not yet publicly available:

Vigilant Agency Fees 2005 ₱40,896,699.00 2006 ₱29,866,372.00 2007 ₱4,872,185.00 2008 ₱7,635,307.07 2009 ₱2,431,951.00 2010 ₱2,748,424.00 2011 ₱2,441,386.00 2012 ₱2,742,940.00 2013 ₱3,488,549.00 2014 ₱5,214,103.00 2015 ₱6,783,676.00 TOTAL ₱134,115,779.07 Now compare that to the Agency Fees that Calida’s company bagged during the Duterte presidency through public bidding. I obtained the figures from the government site PHILGEPS (where many awarded bids are posted), Notice of Awards, and from news reports of ABS-CBN and Rappler.

2016 Vigilant "Agency Fees" Aug National Economic Development (Neda) ₱6,876,737.76 Aug National Anti-Poverty Commission ₱2,870,194.32 Sept Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) ₱15,115,716.80 Sept National Electrification Administration ₱5,970,841.91 Dec Pagcor ₱43,945,631.00 2017 Jan Department of Justice ₱5,678,353.68 Jan House of Representatives ₱42,456,320.50 March Pagcor ₱23,884,682.40 May Pagcor ₱8,556,107.52 June National Parks Development Committee ₱10,369,819.68 July Pagcor ₱5,830,617.40 Dec Department of Justice ₱6,758,862.77 Dec House of Representatives ₱53,734,392.48 2018 Jan National Parks Development Committee ₱29,244,670.62 TOTAL ₱261,292,948.84

Before Calida joined Duterte’s government, he was President and Chairman of Vigilant from 2005 to June 2016. The last government posts he held were in October 2004 as executive director of the Dangerous Drugs Board and before that (2001-2004) as a Department of Justice undersecretary.

When he became SolGen, Calida left the company but continued to personally own 60% of Vigilant (with the rest being owned by his wife Milagros and their children Michele, Josef and Mark Jorel). That means, Calida continued to have the final say in the company.

His wife Milagros assumed his posts and his son Josef became the Vice President and Corporate Secretary.

For this piece, as well as the next two, I tried to reach Mrs. Calida and/or their son Josef over a span of five days. I must have dialed their office number and Josef Calida’s mobile number more than 40 times.

But I had no luck. I was told Mrs. Calida was in Davao while Josef was “attending a court hearing in Cebu.”

In part 3, I will explain why I wanted to reach them both as officers of the company.

SolGen Calida has defended Vigilant’s success in landing government contracts. He emphatically said Vigilant won through pubic bidding fair and square by submitting the “lowest” bids. Not all the time, he hastened to point out. However, it did so successfully 14 times in 18 months.

That's a very good batting average.

He also stressed he was no longer with the company since he had resigned as its President and Chairman after his appointment as SolGen. A disclosure filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission actually confirms this.

However, it is not very clear whether he had disclosed the same to the government agencies where Vigilant had joined the bidding.

Online news site Rappler found that 13 of the 14 “Notice of Awards” to Vigilant from August 2016 to January 2018 still listed Calida as the security agency’s “contact” person.

Did that give Vigilant an edge in the bidding process?

We don’t know. That’s why I wanted to talk to Mrs. Calida and Josef.

However, we can easily see the advantages for a government official and his agency to be on the good side of someone like Calida who is personally close to Duterte and is the chief government lawyer.

Why didn't I talk to the SolGen? Because he said he is no longer active in the company and has kept a distance from its operations.

NEXT: Because Calida is SolGen, some government contracts his security agency won could place him in a direct conflict of interest situation

Disclaimer: The views in this blog are those of the blogger and do not necessarily reflect the views of ABS-CBN Corp.