405 signatories of confi fund receipts under VP Sara-led DepEd ‘non-existent’

MANILA, Philippines – Three in every five signatories of the acknowledgment receipts provided by the Department of Education (DepEd) to justify confidential expenditures during the time Vice President Sara Duterte as agency’s secretary are “non-existent.”

(Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story miscalculated — four in every five — the ratio of non-existent signatories to total number of acknowledgment receipts.)

House good government committee chairperson Joel Chua made public this finding on Monday, December 9, citing the response from the Philippine Statistics Authority the day prior.

“Out of 677 individuals, 405 do not have a birth certificate. We can say they’re non-existent,” he said.

Lawmakers have been flagging the authenticity of the acknowledgement receipts submitted by the DepEd and the Office of the Vice President (OVP) to the Commission on Audit due to these questionable signatures.

Last week, the PSA said Kokoy Villamin — a name that appeared in acknowledgement receipts of the DepEd and the OVP but with varying handwriting — yielded zero results in its database.

During Monday’s hearing, House Assistant Majority Leader Zia Alonto Adiong also flagged other signatories, namely:

• Alice Crescencio – signatures in various receipts differed from one another; addresses were also different
• Sally Rendon and Sheila Dado – two different names had the same signature
• Milky Secuya – signatures in various receipts differed from one another

“We were scammed through thousands of acknowledgment receipts that were hastily doctored or simply fabricated,” Adiong said.

The PSA previously confirmed to the House good government committee that “Mary Grace Piattos” — seemingly a combination of the names of a restaurant and a snack brand — does not exist in the PSA database.

Other apparently contrived names that were reflected in the acknowledgement receipts of the OVP included Fernando Tempura, Reymunda Jane Nova, and Carlos Miguel Oishi.

In total, Duterte’s offices disbursed P612.5 million from 2022 to 2023.

Her alleged misuse of confidential funds have been cited in two separate impeachment complaints against her. – Rappler.com