The traits and triumphs of the country’s top lawyer
tice are advocacies against crime, corruption and immorality—minces no words when asked if this virtue always finds a place in his actions and decisions, whether in a professional or personal capacity.
“Yes it does,” he declared. “And you know why? Because I am a Christian, and as a lawyer we can keep debating, but as a lawyer who is a Christian, we also have to be kind because we are all human beings with frailties.” tle boy who was raising his hands all the time, eager to answer her questions. She wouldn’t call him though, and chose the regular students. I was what you’d call ‘
Anyway, the supervisor must have been so amused by what he saw that he asked my mama, ‘ Who’s that boy?’
“She had to reply, ‘ He is my son but he is not a pupil yet.’
“After that, the supervisor asked me more questions, tested me if I could read and write, and I was able to do what he bade me. So before I knew it, the supervisor ‘promoted’ me, which meant by the age of five I was already in Grade 1,” he laughed. “That’s why I was usually two years younger than my batch mates throughout the rest of my schooling.”
Calida remembers being a quiet boy growing up since he had no siblings to play with at home. His friends were basically his classmates whom he only saw on school days what with their little hut far away from the town and isolated from neighbors.
Raised with sound morals and traditional Filipino values, the young Calida, though quiet, could always be counted on to come to a classmate’s defense to do what he does to this day as Solicitor General: “To balance the injustice and serve as the tribune of the people.” When Calida finished fourth grade at his parents’ public school, his father moved their small family to Davao City after landing a job with the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS). He completed the remaining years of elementary at another public school and qualified to take a scholarship test offered by Ateneo de Davao.
“I could have been the valedictorian of my batch at Davao Elementary School but because of residency issues—since I was technically a transferee—I graduated honorable mention and proceeded to try for a scholarship. Fortunately, I topped the entrance test at Ateneo de Davao that year and was given 100-percent free tuition from high school all the way to college,” the gifted student narrated.
Now exposed to the Jesuits who, besides guided by the Latin motto “Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam” ( For the Greater Glory of God) in all that they do, are reputed as free- thinkers, the once introverted Calida soon found his voice and was especially attracted to the subject of philosophy.
“I found it very exciting and very in-