The Commission on Audit (COA) is studying the possibility of launching a fraud audit against the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd) over the “unusual” names of the recipients of confidential funds from the two agencies that were both then under Vice President Sara Duterte.

The camp of Vice President Sara Duterte filed a motion to quash the grave threats information against her, citing lack of jurisdiction. (Manila Bulletin/file)

COA auditor Xylene Mae del Campo disclosed this to the Senate Impeachment Court on Day 15 of the impeachment trial after Sen. Paolo “Bam” Aquino IV asked her if they have conducted a fraud audit on the use of the confidential funds by the OVP and DepEd.

“It is still being studied with Chairperson (Gamaliel Cordoba),” del Campo told the impeachment court.

“If a fraud audit were to be conducted, this would be the first time…The documents—the transactions involving the OVP and DepEd—consist of a voluminous amount of records containing sensitive information; if these were turned over to another office, that information could be exposed,” she said.

According to Aquino, he and his lawyers have consulted former COA Commissioner Heidi Mendoza over the “strange” names of supposed recipients of the OVP and DepEd’s confidential funds which include “Mary Grace Piattos” who supposedly received P70,000, “Ralph Joseph Bacon” who is said to have been given P150,000 and “Matthew N Keso” who supposedly received P250,000.

“There’s Piattos, Bacon, Heart, Keso, and so on. Didn’t you consider this a red flag?” Aquino asked.

“Some of our lawyers consulted former Commissioner Heidi Mendoza, and she said that when there are unusual names, the COA can trigger an investigation due to fraud,” he pointed out.

The COA auditor said they have not yet looked deeper into the seemingly fraudulent names used by recipients of the OVP and DepEd’s confidential funds since they were assuming regularity in their transactions.

She pointed out that the Special Disbursing Officers (SDO) of both offices under Duterte declared under oath that the money was used for confidential operations.

But Aquino went on to say that Republic Act No. 6085 prohibits the use of aliases and stressing that government auditing rules require that each acknowledgement receipt must strictly correspond to a real, verifiable individual.