Dante Jimenez

Dante Lazaro Jimenez (August 4, 1952 – January 29, 2021) was a Filipino educator and victims' rights campaigner best known as the founder of the advocacy group Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption. He 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. A retired Philippine Navy officer, he also founded the Mariners' Polytechnic Colleges Foundation Legazpi, a maritime academy in Legazpi.

Early life and education Jimenez was the third of seven children born to Bicolano parents in Mandaluyong. His father Jaime Chavez Jimenez Sr. was a World War II guerilla veteran from Libmanan, Camarines Sur who served as a post-war Philippine Navy commodore and who founded the Merchants' Polytechnic University in Manila. His mother Eliza dela Torre Lazaro hailed from the city of Naga, Camarines Sur and was co-founder of the maritime school in the city. 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. He 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. Jimenez took up journalism as a prerequisite for his planned career in Law. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Santo Tomas in 1973. On February 21, 2020, Jimenez succeeded Vice President Leni Robredo as Co-Chairperson of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs.

Activism In his autobiographical book Profile of a Crusader published in 2001, Jimenez narrated how the murder of his brother Jaime Jr. or Boboy by a drug syndicate in a case of mistaken identity in December 1990 prompted him to help organize the victims' rights group Crusade Against Violence (CAV) together with Romulo Villa. Villa, the crusade's co-founder and chair, was the father of hazing victim Leonardo Villa. 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 (VACC). Through the CAV and VACC, Jimenez rallied support for a return to capital punishment for heinous crimes.

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. He also 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.

Personal life and death Jimenez was married to a fellow naval intelligence officer. They wed on January 8, 1987, at the Malate Church and had three daughters. He died on January 29, 2021, of an aortic aneurysm at the age of 68.