THE latest fictitious names found in the list of recipients of confidential funds of impeached Vice President Sara Duterte sound like they are from someone’s grocery list, La Union Rep. Paolo Ortega V said yesterday.
Ortega said “Team Grocery,” identified as beneficiaries of the Vice President’s P500 million confidential funds, is composed of “Beverly Claire Pampano,” “Mico Harina,” “Patty Ting,” “Ralph Josh Bacon,” and “Sala Casim.”
“Mukhang listahan po ng mga bibilhin sa palengke o grocery ang mga bagong pangalang nakita natin (The latest names we’ve discovered seem like a list of wet market or grocery items),” Ortega said.
He noted “pampano” is a popular fish while “harina” translates to “flour,” a basic ingredient in bread and pastries.
Ortega also found ridiculous the use of the name “Patty,” saying its reminds him of hamburger meat while “Bacon,” is an American breakfast staple.
On “Casim,” he said it refers to a pork shoulder cut widely used in Filipino dishes like adobo and menudo, which is spelled “kasim” in Filipino.
Team Grocery adds to a growing list of suspicious names submitted to the Commission on Audit (COA) by the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd) which Duterte headed until last year, to justify the disbursement of millions in confidential funds.
Like the many other names flagged by the House, Ortega said, Pampano, Harina, Patty Ting, Bacon, and Casim do not match any official birth, marriage, or death records from the Philippine Statistics Authority.
“If they’re not real people, where did the funds go? This isn’t the first time we’ve discovered funny or weird-sounding names,” he said in mixed Filipino and English.
The absence of government-issued records, Ortega said, could be an indication someone deliberately crafted the “grocery list” to release the confidential funds.
“What’s more lamentable is the fact that the list continues to grow. Is it merely a typo? There really seems to be an effort to concoct names to hide where the funds were really spent,” he said.
Last week, Ortega said the list of the recipients of Duterte’s confidential funds in the DepEd included an “Amoy Liu,” a “Fernan Amuy,” and a “Joug De Asim.”
Earlier, he questioned the inclusion of five “Dodongs,” a “Jay Kamote” and a “Miggy Mango” who were discovered in the list of recipients after “Mary Grace Piattos,” one “Pia Piatos-Lim” and one “Renan Piatos.”
The name Piattos has been the subject of ridicule because the first name “Mary Grace” is that of a popular restaurant, while “Piattos is a known local potato chips snack brand.
Ortega noted that out of the 1,992 supposed recipients of the OVP’s confidential funds, 1,322 have no birth records; 1,456 have no marriage records; and 1,593 have no death records.
The House prosecution team in the impending impeachment trial of the vice president believes the findings further strengthen their case since among specific acts cited in the Articles of Impeachment was Duterte’s alleged malversation of a total of P612.5 million in confidential funds as vice president and as Education secretary.
Duterte is accused of questionable disbursements under the OVP, worth P254.8 million, and linked to 1,322 fictitious beneficiaries who have no birth records, and another P43.2 million in alleged ghost transactions involving 405 fake names under the DepEd’s confidential funds.
Duterte has failed to explain the dubious names, saying she does not know how the House handled the “chain of evidence,” which Ortega earlier said is just another attempt to evade accountability.
