The mysterious case of “Mary Grace Piattos” is merely the tip of the iceberg in a broader issue involving 158 acknowledgment receipts (ARs) that officials from the Office of the Vice President (OVP), led by Vice President Sara Duterte, must address and clarify, according to Manila Rep. Joel Chua.
Chua, chair of the House Blue Ribbon Committee, revealed that the panel is considering engaging penmanship experts to examine all 158 ARs submitted by the OVP to the Commission on Audit (COA) to determine their authenticity.
The receipts were reportedly used to justify the disbursement of P500 million in confidential and intelligence funds allocated to the OVP—P125 million per quarter from the last quarter of 2022 to the first three quarters of 2023.
Notably, the first tranche of P125 million was spent in just 11 days in December 2022.
The committee had earlier offered a P1 million reward for any credible information on “Mary Grace Piattos,” a name appearing in suspicious liquidation documents linked to the alleged misuse of government funds by the OVP.
In a press conference at the House of Representatives on Tuesday, Chua announced that the committee will coordinate with the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) to verify information about Piattos.
“Mary Grace Piattos” captured public attention for its unusual and suspicious nature, but Chua emphasized that the name is merely the tip of a larger investigation into questionable ARs.
“That’s not the only problem we saw here. We saw many problems, that’s just one of the problems we saw,” Chua said in Tagalog.
He said some receipts covered periods when no confidential funds were available, raising concerns that they were hastily produced after the COA issued an Audit Observation Memorandum (AOM).
“Our theory is that the [ARs] appeared when COA issued them the AOM. So, because of that, they were confused to justify their liquidation. They produced a lot of [ARs],” Chua explained.
The receipts include varying amounts—P60,000; P40,000; P400,000—and are riddled with discrepancies such as mismatched dates, missing signatures, and other irregularities. The committee also flagged striking similarities in handwriting and ink across the receipts.
Chua added that if the OVP fails to fully justify the ARs, the committee may conclude that these receipts are fabricated.
House Assistant Majority Leader and Taguig Rep. Amparo Maria Zamora echoed Chua’s concerns, highlighting the OVP’s failure to meet even the simplest requirements for ARs. However, she noted glaring inconsistencies in the receipts.
“There are many [ARs] there that we saw—some have no dates, there was only a signature without a name, there was a name without a signature. There is a wrong date, not consistent with when it was released, when it was disbursed,” she said.
Zamora further raised concerns over the uniformity in handwriting. Given the large sums involved, she called on Vice President Duterte and OVP Special Disbursing Officer (SDO) Gina Acosta to appear before the committee and address the discrepancies.
For her part, House Deputy Minority Leader and ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro criticized Duterte over the highly questionable receipts for confidential funds bearing the signature of an apparently non-existent person named Mary Grace Piattos.
“This is a clear case of fraud and misuse of public funds. How can we trust the Office of the Vice President when they cannot even present real people who supposedly received these confidential funds? This is why Congress is now offering a P1-million reward to anyone who can present this mysterious Mary Grace Piattos,” Castro stated.
Castro emphasized that VP Sara Duterte’s continued absence from congressional hearings only reinforces suspicions about the irregular handling of confidential funds.
“The Vice President must face the Filipino people and explain these irregularities. These are public funds we’re talking about. Her deliberate avoidance of legislative scrutiny raises serious questions about transparency and accountability in her office,” Castro said.
