1. Dante Lazaro Jimenez was a Filipino educator and victims' rights campaigner best known as the founder of the advocacy group Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption.
18 Facts About Dante Jimenez
1. 2.
Dante Jimenez was a prominent figure in the Duterte administration, serving as the inaugural chairman of the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission from 2018 and as co-chairman of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs from 2020.
3.
Dante Jimenez initially attended primary school at Don Bosco Technical Institute in Mandaluyong where his father worked as dean of the Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering Institute.
4.
Dante Jimenez then moved with his family to the Philippine Navy barracks of the Plaza Militar in Malate and finished both elementary and high school at Malate Catholic School.
5.
Dante Jimenez took up journalism as a prerequisite for his planned career in Law.
6.
Dante Jimenez earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Santo Tomas in 1973.
7.
Dante Jimenez started out as a manager of a security agency that his father established soon after graduating from university in 1973.
8.
Dante Jimenez worked short-term as a disc jockey for a radio station in Quezon City before signing up with the Philippine Navy like his father in 1974.
9.
Dante Jimenez ventured on his own and started the Mariners' Polytechnic Colleges in the city of Legazpi in 1985.
10.
Dante Jimenez served as the school's first administrator and president while serving as a two-term president of the Philippine Association of Maritime Institutions.
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Dante Jimenez then delved into political activism and co-founded the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption in 1998.
12.
Dante Jimenez began writing for Pilipino Star Ngayon and People's Tonight and hosted a television talk show on GNN.
13.
Dante Jimenez was appointed by President Rodrigo Duterte as Chairperson of the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission formed through Executive Order No 43 issued in October 2017.
14.
On February 21,2020, Dante Jimenez succeeded Vice President Leni Robredo as Co-Chairperson of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs.
15.
Dante Jimenez eventually served as the group's chairman and in 1998, together with Lauro Vizconde, formed a new criminal justice advocacy group, the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption.
16.
Dante Jimenez, as chair of the VACC, became involved in political anti-graft activism and was a leading figure in the prosecution of former President Joseph Estrada on plunder charges in the early 2000s and Janet Lim-Napoles and others involved in the Priority Development Assistance Fund scam in 2013.
17.
Dante Jimenez led the filing of malversation charges against former President Benigno Aquino III for alleged anomalies in the Disbursement Acceleration Program, the criminal charges against Senator Leila de Lima for her alleged involvement in the New Bilibid Prison drug trafficking scandal, and the impeachment complaints against Supreme Court chief justice Maria Lourdes Sereno and Commission on Elections chair Andres Bautista.
18.
Dante Jimenez died on January 29,2021, of an aortic aneurysm at the age of 68.