Vice President Sara Duterte (Noel Pabalate/ MANILA BULLETIN)

And the cross-checking of names in connection with the confidential funds issue continues.

This time, the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability is asking the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) to verify the civil registry records of 1,992 individuals linked to P500 million in confidential funds allegedly spent by the Office of the Vice President (OVP) under Vice President Sara Duterte.

“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 chairman, Manila 3rd district Rep. Joel Chua said in his Dec. 9 letter to National Statistician and Civil Registrar General Claire Dennis Mapa.

The request comes in the wake of a PSA report that revealed glaring discrepancies in an earlier batch of names tied to P112.5 million in confidential funds disbursed by the Department of Education (DepEd) during Duterte’s term as secretary in 2023. 

Out of the 667 names examined, 405 had no birth records, 445 lacked marriage certificates, and 508 had no death certificates.

The latest batch of names under scrutiny have appeared on acknowledgment receipts (ARs) submitted by the OVP to the Commission on Audit (COA) to justify confidential fund expenditures from late 2022 to the third quarter of 2023.

Chua underscored the importance of PSA verification in uncovering potential irregularities.

“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.

The ARs, which serve as documentation for the distribution of funds, are now under intense scrutiny after discrepancies in the records pointed to potential fabrication. 

The poster girl of this controversy is AD signatory “Mary Grace Piattos", whose name does not exist in the PSA database. Her name appears to be an amalgamation of a popular restaurant and a brand of potato chips.

Lawmakers suspect that many--if not all--of the names may be fictitious. If so, this appears to be evidence of a systematic misuse of public funds, says the solons.