MANILA, Philippines — Presidential Anti-Crime Commission (PACC) chairman Dante Jimenez died of an aortic aneurysm Friday night, his family confirmed yesterday. He was 68.
“With deep sorrow, the family announces the passing away of Dante Jimenez, PACC chairman, due to aortic aneurysm at 9:43 p.m. Friday,” Arsenio Evangelista, who was authorized by the Jimenez family to speak on their behalf, told radio dzBB.
Jimenez died at the Chinese General Hospital in Manila where he was taken by his relatives.
“There was an attempt to revive him. You know, aortic aneurysm’s like a traitor that hits you out of nowhere,” Evangelista said in Filipino.
The family’s initial plan is to hold a wake in Metro Manila before bringing Jimenez’s remains to his hometown in Bicol, he said.
Evangelista is the president of Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC), the anti-crime watchdog organization which Jimenez founded.
He lauded Jimenez as a loving family man and anti-crime crusader.
Malacañang also paid tribute to him for his role in the fight against criminality, graft and corruption.
Chief presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo and presidential spokesman Harry Roque Jr. both expressed sadness and condolences to his family.
“Trusting his competence and passion for public service and genuine social change, President Duterte appointed him to lead the fight against graft and corruption,” Panelo said. “His strength and zeal will be missed as we continue our campaign against criminality and corruption, among others.”
At the time of his death, Jimenez was also the co-chairman of the Inter-Agency Committee on Illegal Drugs (ICAD).
“PACC chair Jimenez spent most of his productive life advocating a just and peaceful society for Filipinos by fighting criminality and corruption. He believed and shared President Duterte’s centerpiece program, which is the campaign against illegal drugs, crime and corruption,” Roque said.
His autobiographical book “Profile of a Crusader” published in 2001, revealed his undeterred pursuits to seek justice for victims of crimes through the Crusade Against Violence, drawing much of his zeal from the murder of his own brother in 1990.
Later, he moved on to organize the VACC, expanding the scope of his anti-crime crusade to exposing and correcting injustices rooted in corruption and abuse of power.
Apart from lobbying for the death penalty as a deterrent to heinous crimes, Jimenez and the organizations he led sought to improve the criminal justice system for a more peaceful society.
Jimenez’s watchdog organization became an active support group that assisted aggrieved parties in many celebrated cases such as the Vizconde massacre, the Nida Blanca murder, the Bubby Dacer-Emmanuel Corbito double-murder case and most recently, the of case flight attendant Christine Dacera, among others. – Christina Mendez