The House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability has once again called on the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) to crosscheck the remaining names in the acknowledgment receipts related to the alleged misuse of Vice President Sara Duterte’s confidential funds.
Following the discovery that the names “Mary Grace Piattos” and “Kokoy Villamin” were fictitious, the committee deemed it necessary to request that the PSA verify whether other names could also be non-existent.
“May we request for the verification of the Civil Registry Documents (birth, marriage, and death) of the names in the attached list relative to the investigation being conducted by the committee,” committee chair, Manila 3rd District Rep. Joel Chua, said.
The request arose after the PSA revealed that, in a previous batch of names connected to the P112.5 million in confidential funds from the Department of Education, discrepancies were found. According to the PSA’s findings, 667 names were examined: 405 lacked birth records, 445 had no marriage certificates, and 508 were missing death certificates.
Chua emphasized the importance of the PSA in identifying other potentially fictitious names.
“A certification that these names are not in the PSA database would bolster suspicions that they do not exist and that the ARs were fabricated to justify confidential fund expenditures by the OVP and DepEd under Vice President Duterte,” Chua said.
Lawmakers suspect that while not all, a significant number of the names could be fabricated.
