Government agencies are in a better position to verify the identities of individuals named “Chel Diokno” and “Marian Rivera” who allegedly appeared in documents related to the disbursement of confidential and intelligence funds by the Office of the Vice President (OVP).
Thus, said House Assistant Majority Leader Lanao del Sur 1st district Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong on Sunday, May 25, referring in particular to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).
Adiong said the request for verification aims to determine if these names indeed belonged to real individuals, and whether they are distinct from public figures with the same names.
Diokno is a lawyer-politician, while Rivera is a showbiz personality.
There have been viral reports about their alleged inclusion in questionable acknowledgment receipts (AR) of Vice President Sara Duterte's confidential funds. The House of Representatives impeached Duterte last February, and one of the bigger allegations was her alleged misuse of P612.5 million worth of confidential funds.
"In fact, the agencies that are tasked and also has the capacity to really
assess and verify whether a certain Chel Diokno is indeed apart from the Chel Diokno that we'd be popularly know," Adiong said.
"So I guess the agencies that can actually help us, the public, to really know whether may talagang tao na ganun din ng pangalan ay PSA at NBI (or not there is a person like that is the PSA and NBI). That's why from the very start, alam mo naman (you know that), we requested the assistance of these agencies," he added.
Adiong said many ARs have not been included during the investigation of the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability on the confidential funds misuse.
"In fact, just a portion of the [ARs] were at that time available to the good government [panel] that we were able to see yung (the) discrepancies.”
He said the documents included suspicious entries and have shown discrepancies.
“Iyung mga pirma, mga pangalan na pagkapare-pareho pero makakaibang lugar, may mga pirma na hindi makakapareho pero isa ‘yung pangalan (The signatures, the names that are identical but are from different places, there are signatures that don’t match, but the name is the same),” he added.
“As to the new revelations, kaya nga namin hiningi yung assistance ng PSA at NBI kasi marami pang [ARs] at that time na hindi pa natin na nakitita (As for the new revelations, that’s precisely why we sought the assistance of the PSA and NBI, because at that time, there were still many ARs that we had yet to see),” Adiong further said.