With the start of Vice President Sara Duterte's Senate impeachment trial just days away, La Union 1st district Rep. Paolo Ortega revealed more names of allegedly fake recipients of Office of the Vice President (OVP) confidential funds--and seven of them appeared to have borrowed names of Philippine senators.
These seven, senator-sounding acknowledgement receipt (AR) signatories were “Beth Revilla", “Janice Marie Revilla," "Diane Maple Lapid", “John A. Lapid Jr.", “Clarisse Hontiveros", “Kristine Applegate Estrada", and “Denise Tanya Escudero”.
Incidentally, it's the 24 sitting senators who will serve as judges in the trial of Duterte, who is being accused--among other things--of misuse of P612.5 million worth of confidential funds.
“These irregularities are too glaring to ignore—these names from supposed Budol Gang call for a deeper look,” Ortega, a House deputy majority leader, said in a statement Thursday, May 29, in reference to the collection of questionable and absurd-sounding secret fund recipients.
It can be recalled that "Mary Grace Piattos" kicked off last year the discovery of such names raised great concern among investigating solons whether or not offices under Vice President Duterte were using the confidential funds properly.
Mary Grace Piattos is an amalgam of a name of a popular local cafe and a bag of potato chips.
Also on Thursday, Ortega highlighted newly-discovered AR entries such as “Cannor Adrian Contis", along with individuals bearing the surname “Solon” such as Kris Solon and Paul M. Solon--a surname similar to Sarangani lone district Rep. Steve Chiongbian Solon.
“Hindi lang pala si Mary Grace Piattos ang may kapangalan na café-restaurant, pati pala Contis. Kapag ba may confidential funds ang opisina mo, may sweet tooth ka din?” the recently reelected Ortega asked sarcastically.
(It turns out that Mary Grace Piattos isn’t the only one whose name matches a café-restaurant—Conti’s does too. If your office has confidential funds, does that mean you have a sweet tooth as well? )
Pambihira dinadamay pati mga apelyido ng ating esteemed senators. Ganyan po kagarapal ang listahan ng supposed beneficiaries ng OVP confidential funds,” he said.
(Unbelievable—even the surnames of our esteemed senators are being dragged into this. That’s how shameless the list of supposed beneficiaries of the OVP confidential funds is.)
“Kung paulit-ulit na gumamit ang OVP ng fictitious names, meron silang obligasyong patunayan na may tunay na tao sa likod ng bawat pangalan. At kung wala, mismong listahan ang magiging ebidensya ng katiwalian sa Senado," Ortega added.
(If the OVP repeatedly used fictitious names, they have an obligation to prove that there are real individuals behind each one. And if there aren't, the list itself will serve as evidence of corruption in the Senate.)
The La Union congressman reckoned that the frequency and creativity of the names no longer seem coincidental and could point to a systemic attempt to allegedly obscure confidential fund transactions.
Similar to previously flagged entries, Ortega said the newly surfaced names did not appear in official birth, marriage, or death records from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
Earlier, Ortega bared these bogus names that allegedly benefitted from Vice President Duterte-controlled confidential funds: Honeylet Camille Sy, Feonna Biong, Feonna Villegas, and Joel Linangan from the OVP and Fiona Ranitez, Erwin Q. Ewan, Ellen Magellan, Gary Tanada, Beverly Claire Pampano, Mico Harina, Ralph Josh Bacon, Patty Ting, Sala Casim, Amoy Liu, Fernan Amuy, Joug De Asim, and Xiaome Ocho.