The Office of the Vice President was accused of “over-liquidating” some P23.8 million in confidential funds through 158 receipts, which 1-Rider party-list Rep. Rodge Gutierrez said.
Gutierrez described the receipts submitted by the OVP as “bogus and spurious.”
“So, what you’re saying is they (OVP) exceeded in their liquidation reports?” Rep. Joel Chua of Manila, panel chairman of the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability asked Gutierrez.
“Your guess is as good as ours. It could also be that these ARs (acknowledgment receipts) were belatedly prepared,” Gutierrez said, noting that some liquidation papers bore a December 2023 date when no confidential funds were disbursed in this period.
All in all, the OVP submitted 158 acknowledgment receipts to the Commission on Audit, covering various transactions, the lawmaker said.
“For 158 people to make the same mistake, is that something that would be acceptable? Is that an acceptable margin of error for COA?” Gutierrez asked. “These are clear red flags in relation to the ARs submitted by the OVP, and this is something that we should consider (legislating).”
COA official Gloria Camora earlier told the House committee that there may have been “inadvertence and typographical mistakes” committed by OVP personnel as she also confirmed there was no CIF released in the third quarter of 2023, negating the need for ARs.
“One of the findings under the COA notice of suspension is that some ARs were dated December 2023, and some were even undated. They (OVP) said they inadvertently contained clerical or typographical errors indicating 2023 instead of 2022,” she said.
But Gutierrez said he was not convinced, noting the “red flags” it raised as they found the ARs to be “spurious and bogus” to say the least.
He showed ARs dated November 2022 despite the fact that confidential and intelligence funds were only disbursed a month later in December 2022 where the OVP spent P125 million in just 11 days.
There were also ARs bearing not just similar handwritings and same color of ballpens in a common pattern, but also having the same set of signatories like a certain “AAS” and “JOV” who received a total of P280,000 and P920,000 allegedly in December 2022.
Quad Comm senior vice chairman Rep. Romeo Acop of Antipolo City’s second district asked Camora, who heads COA’s intelligence and confidential funds audit office (ICFAO), if she was aware of a reputable restaurant named “Mary Grace” and the potato chip brand “Piattos,” since one AR bore the same name, with Piattos as its surname.
The signatory AAS received a total P280,000 – P60,000 in December 2022, P150,000 in February 2023 and P70,000 in the third quarter of the same year.
JOV, on the other hand, received nearly a million pesos (P920,000) — the first AR for “reward payment” at P170,000, followed by P250,000 for “supplies” and the last at P500,000 for “medical and food aid.”
“More likely, this was the same mistake committed by perhaps a few persons. Which raises the question: Are these ARs spurious? Are they bogus? Are they false? We want to make sure that this doesn’t happen again. Accountability should be had on this,” Gutierrez said.
Earlier, Batangas Rep. Gerville Luisto said the House committee may have found a prima facie case of malversation against Vice President Sara Duterte over an unaccounted P10.4 million in confidential funds spent when she was still Education secretary.
Luistro said DepEd was able to liquidate only P4.2 million out of the P15.5 million allocated to the agency.
“It is the humble submission of this representation that there is a prima facie case of malversation and, in addition, an apparent case of breach of public trust. For us to be able to know whether there is malversation, four elements must be present,” she said.
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