The Supreme Court (SC) has dismissed for being moot the petition of Solicitor General Jose Calida who sought to stop the Senate investigation against him that was conducted by former senator Antonio Trillanes IV.

Calida filed the petition against Trillanes who conducted the Senate investigation in 2018 during 17th Congress and based on Senate Resolution No. 760 which he filed.

“With the closing of the 17th Congress, the investigation into the Proposed Senate Resolution NO. 760 automatically ceased, rendering this case moot as ‘the conflicting issue that may be resolved by the court cease[d] to exist’,” read the SC resolution.

“Thus Court also takes judicial notice that respondent Trillanes has reaxched the end of his two-year term as senator. Thus, petitioners’ prayer for this Court to permanently prohibit him from conducting an investigation into their supposed conflict of interest has likewise been rendered moot,” it added.

Trillanes conducted the Senate inquiry which concerned the conflict of interest issue involving the governments contracts of Vigilant Investigative and Security Agency, the security firm owned by the Calida family

In his petition, Calida said Trillanes conducted the Senate inquiry “on his own and without legal authority from either the Senate or the Committee.”

“His acts amount to grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction,” he stressed.

Calida pointed out that he and his family will “suffer injustice and irreparable injury if Respondent will not be restrained from conducting the inquiry on 16 August 2018.”