House mulls consulting PSA to verify 'Mary Grace Piattos,' other recipients of confidential funds

MANILA, Philippines — The House Blue Ribbon Committee plans to coordinate with the Philippine Statistics Authority to verify the identity of a certain “Mary Grace Piattos,” who was listed as one of the recipients of confidential funds from the Office of the Vice President.

At a press conference on Tuesday, November 19, Rep. Joel Chua (Manila, 3rd District), chair of the committee, was asked if they would seek the PSA's assistance in authenticating the existence of individuals who signed acknowledgment receipts for confidential fund payments.

This includes Piattos, whose name was considered absurd and questionable, and who was reportedly the recipient of the largest amount disbursed.

“Definitely,” he said. “Bukas po, lahat po ‘yan na malalaman po natin sa committee hearing.”

(Tomorrow, we will learn all about that during the committee hearing.)

Chua explained that the committee is also considering consulting handwriting experts, or graphologists, to analyze the penmanship on the acknowledgment receipts.

“Kasi on top of that, kinoconsider na rin po namin ‘yung mga penmanship para ma-submit sa mga expert,” he said.

(Because on top of that, we are also considering the penmanship to be submitted to experts.)

The committee also announced on Monday that a P1 million reward would be offered to anyone who could provide information on Piattos.

RELATED: Is ‘Mary Grace Piattos’ real?: Offer P1M reward for info on OVP fund recipient

The acknowledgment receipts referred to by the government panel are the 158 pieces of documentary evidence of payment and certification submitted by the OVP to the Commission on Audit to justify the use of P500 million confidential funds.

Among its recent findings are typographical errors in 158 acknowledgment receipts, which have further raised lawmakers' doubts about the proper use of the allocated confidential funds.

'Red flags' in receipts

Chua emphasized that not only were these receipts undated or contained the wrong year, but the way the names were written also appeared strikingly similar.

“Ang mga highlight po kasi doon … ‘yung mga stroke po. Eh parang bagamat iba-iba yung pangalan pero yung stroke kung paano pinirmahan ito ay isa lang,” he said.

(The highlights are the strokes. Even though the names are different, the way they were signed appears to be the same.)

On top of the penmanship, Chua said the committee also found some acknowledgment receipts indicating months in which no confidential funds were supposedly used.

This led the committee to theorize that the acknowledgment receipts were rushed and produced only after the OVP received an Audit Observation Memo (AOM) for its use of confidential funds from 2022 to 2023. 

“So because of that, nataranta po sila to justify yung liquidation nila. Nagproduce sila ng maraming acknowledgement receipt,” Chua said.

(So because of that, they were flustered and had to justify their liquidation. They produced a lot of acknowledgment receipts.)

COA issues an AOM to agency heads to inform them of deficiencies in the audit of accounts, operations, or transactions that require their attention. The agency may then be asked to provide comments or submit additional documents.

OVP's defense. At the fifth hearing, COA said that the OVP’s explanation for these errors was that the “confidential activities took place within a short period” and that personnel had a “lack of attention to detail” due to handling “voluminous papers.”

Chua said that because these errors were found in multiple acknowledgment receipts, the committee is urging the OVP to justify how it spent P125 million in confidential funds over 11 days in December 2022.

Recipients were paid varying amounts, with some receiving between P40,000 and P60,000, while others were given more than P100,000.

Duterte earlier stated that she would not attend the sixth hearing on November 20 and would instead submit an affidavit to address the matter. However, the committee believes this will be insufficient, as other questions may arise from the affidavit.

This could have been the vice president’s opportunity to clarify the confidential fund expenses, Rep. Pammy Zamora (Taguig, 2nd District) said.