Sara Duterte won't explain why 'Piattos,' 'Chippy' received confidential funds

MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Sara Duterte declined Wednesday, December 11, to explain why her office's confidential fund receipts bore names of non-existent individuals, including a certain "Mary Grace Piattos" whom the Philippine Statistics Authority confirmed has no birth, death or marriage records.

"I will not give an explanation because it will entail that I explain intelligence operations, which will compromise offices who do intelligence operations," Duterte told reporters during a press conference after hosting them for lunch.

Duterte's response comes amid mounting allegations by lawmakers of irregularities in the P612.5-million worth of confidential funds spent by the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education in two years.

These included the use of fake names in "fabricated receipts" to liquidate its secret funds. The PSA this week found that 405 out of 677 supposed "recipients" of these funds were either non-existent or lacked birth certificates.

RELATED: No record of 60% of 677 alleged DepEd confidential fund recipients — PSA

The House committee on good government and public accountability revealed Tuesday that "Mary Grace Piattos," who supposedly received P70,000 for medicines on December 30, 2022, has no birth, marriage, or death records with the PSA. Two lawmakers have offered a P1-million reward for information about this person.

Duterte distanced herself from the preparation of these acknowledgment receipts (AR), telling reporters: "I had nothing to do with the preparation of ARs. That went down to the grassroots level. I was up here in the structure and money went down for information."

When pressed about other suspicious names like "Chippy McDonald," "Fernando Tempura," and "Carlos Oishi," Duterte refused to confirm if these were code names, saying such confirmation "will add to cases that will be filed against me."

The acknowledgment receipts bore other markings of forgery, according to House lawmakers. Specifically, two recurring signatories – identified only as "AAS" and "JOV" – received substantial payments.

A certain AAS collected P280,000 in three tranches: P60,000 in December 2022, P150,000 in February 2023, and P70,000 in the third quarter. JOV, meanwhile, received a total of P920,000 - P170,000 for "reward payment," P250,000 for "supplies," and P500,000 for "medical and food aid."

Rep. Joel Chua (Manila, 3rd District) who chairs the House panel, noted that many receipts bore "similar handwritings, same color of ballpens in a common pattern." He also suspects that the receipts were hastily made due to the nature of the errors and the dates on which they were issued.

Duterte's office previously explained to COA that errors in the receipts occurred because "confidential activities took place within a short period" and personnel had a "lack of attention to detail" due to handling "voluminous papers."

Duterte — who made a rare appearance at the last House good government panel hearing last month — said she doubts the authenticity of the receipts being examined by lawmakers.

"We do not even know if these are ARs which came from DepEd or OVP to COA because there is a chain of evidence," Duterte said. "Nobody can answer that because nobody knows if these ARs are true."

These acknowledgment receipts were submitted by the OVP to the Commission on Audit (COA), which then turned these over to the House good government committee for its inquiry into Duterte's use of confidential funds. Confidential funds, as the name implies, are secret expenses that can only be audited through government agencies' submission of documents to the COA. Duterte has direct oversight of these.

Duterte insisted she would only answer to state auditors, despite Congress' constitutional power to conduct investigations not just in aid of legislation, but also to exercise oversight over public funds.

The House committee has maintained that its investigation falls under Congress' oversight function to examine how public funds are spent, particularly given that confidential expenses come from public funds.

"They cannot make me answer and say that we represent the taxpayers," Duterte said. "I will only answer to the Commission on Audit because that is the body who can ask us questions about the fund use."

Duterte cited ongoing proceedings with state auditors, who earlier in August disallowed P73 million worth of the OVP's confidential funds for 2022 due to "non-submission of documents evidencing the success of information gathering/and or surveillance." State auditors also flagged P164 million in Duterte's 2023 confidential expenses.

A notice of disallowance indicates COA's disapproval of transactions deemed irregular, unnecessary, excessive, extravagant, or unconscionable.

"There was a partial disallowance only. And even then, we are not yet finished with the process because we can still submit documents that are required by the Commission on Audit," she said, insisting her offices have been "fully cooperative" with state auditors. "Everything that they asked for, we submitted."

The alleged misuse of confidential funds has been cited in two separate impeachment complaints filed against Duterte.