(After PSA says Piattos does not exist) House leaders warn: ‘Fraud, systemic misuse’ of OVP funds

CEBU, Philippines — Leaders of the House of Representatives warned of potential fraud and systemic misuse of public funds in the office of Vice President Sara Duterte after the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) confirmed that a supposed recipient of the OVP confidential funds does not exist.

Deputy Majority Leader Jude Acidre of the Tingog Party-list and Bataan First District Rep. Geraldine Roman said that the PSA confirmation that Mary Grace Piattos is a fake identity signals a larger scheme of falsified financial records at the OVP.

The PSA certified that no birth, marriage, or death records exist for Piattos, a name appearing in acknowledgment receipts submitted by the OVP to the Commission on Audit (COA).

These receipts were used to justify expenses from OVP confidential funds amounting to P500 million across four quarters from late 2022 to 2023.

“In effect, that certification means Mary Grace Piattos does not exist and has serious implications,” Roman said during a press briefing at the House of Representatives.

Roman, chairperson of the Committee on Women and Gender Equality, explained that the use of a fictitious name in financial records submitted to a government auditing body suggests deliberate fraud.

“When you submit documents to the COA that there is a person named Mary Grace Piattos, that would justify a certain expenses and you have proven that there is none, there is an element of fraud there,” Roman said.

Roman further emphasized that the absence of Piattos as a real person invalidates all documents bearing her name.

“If there is no Mary Grace Piattos, all the documents supposedly signed by Mary Grace Piattos are fake and untrue,” Roman said.

With no birth, marriage, or death records of Piattos in the national civil registry, Acidre said her fabricated identity may only scratch the surface of deeper irregularities in the OVP’s financial records.

“The problem is not only Mary Grace Piattos. She is only a tip of the iceberg,” Acidre said.

Acidre described the PSA findings as a significant turning point in uncovering potential misuse of the P612.5 million public funds in the OVP and Department of Education when Duterte was its secretary.

“It is a good development that the PSA itself was the one that confirmed that there is no Mary Grace Piattos,” Acidre said.

He warned that the discovery of one falsified receipt raises questions about the authenticity of other financial records submitted by the OVP.

“If we discovered one mistake, it is not farfetched that all the others are also wrong. There is a Latin Dictum, falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus,” Acidre said.

“If Mary Grace Piattos is fictitious, then the people were robbed,” he added.

Acidre also pointed to other findings by the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability revealing systemic lapses in how the OVP handled its confidential funds.

He cited the testimony of OVP Special Disbursing Officer Gina Acosta, who admitted to transferring custody of confidential funds to Col. Raymund Dante Lachica, commander of the Vice Presidential Security and Protection Group, upon direct orders from Vice President Duterte.

Acidre argued that this transfer bypassed standard financial safeguards, undermining accountability and potentially constituting technical malversation.

He also flagged inconsistencies in the receipts themselves, such as mismatched signatures, identical handwriting, and uniform ink usage.

“We saw there that different names, same names, with different signatures. Sometimes they used the same ballpen and same ink,” he pointed out.

Acidre clarified that while Congress cannot prosecute, the findings should be forwarded to the Department of Justice for further action.

“Our job is to make recommendations and we hope that the prosecutors or the DOJ (Department of Justice) will thoroughly study the pieces of evidence for what it is,” Acidre said.

Acidre emphasized that the patterns of irregularity in the OVP’s financial documents strengthen the case for technical malversation.

“If these are spurious on a large scale, we might lead to technical malversatin,” he said. —/Philippine Star News Service/ FPL (FREEMAN)