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LAWMAKERS yesterday stumbled upon another fictitious name during their investigation into Vice President Sara Duterte’s alleged misuse of her hundreds of millions of confidential funds where a certain “Kokoy Villamin” was found to have signed receipts submitted by the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd) as liquidation documents to the Commission on Audit (COA).
During the resumption of the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability’s investigation, Lanao del Sur Rep. Zia Alonto questioned two acknowledgment receipts (ARs), one for the OVP and one for DepEd, after he noticed that these were both received by Villamin.
Alonto noted that the two receipts bore two different signatures, both under Villamin’s name, which lawmakers said suggests potential falsification of the liquidation documents by fabricating names in the ARs to justify confidential fund spending.
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“The point I’m trying to drive at, Mr. Chair, is that based on the documents and the (receipts), we do not have any other ways to really affirm whether these persons and individuals who have received the confidential funds were truly alive and true persons,” Adiong told panel chair Manila Rep. Joel Chua.
Congressmen and netizens earlier questioned the existence of one “Mary Grace Piattos,” whose name appears in the OVP’s receipts, saying she could be a made-up figure whose first name – Mary Grace – could have been taken from the name of a popular cafe diner, while the surname Piattos could have come from a known local potato chips snack brand.
Other suspected fictitious names have also appeared as signatories in the 158 acknowledgment receipts that were attached to the liquidation reports submitted by the OVP to the COA to justify the P125 million confidential funds that were allegedly spent in just 11 days in 2022.
The names include Fernando Tempura, Carlos Miguel Oishi, Reymunda Jane Nova, and a Chippy McDonald – names which congressmen said were obviously taken from local snack brands.
Lawmakers earlier expressed belief that the OVP may have fabricated acknowledgment receipts signed by fictitious individuals to liquidate its confidential fund expenditures after the COA issued its audit observations.
Adiong presented a receipt dated Sept. 17, 2023, where Kokoy Villamin appeared as the recipient of funds from the OVP, and another receipt from the DepEd which bore the same name but had a different signature.
He said the first name also appears to be just a nickname.
While the DepEd receipt did not show a date, it was clearly signed by a person of the same name, who appears to be from Ozamis City, Misamis Occidental.
“Makikita po natin ‘yung medyo hindi ho kapanipaniwala. Ako, ordinary po ako na tao (We can see that this is incredible. I’m just an ordinary man). I’m not an auditor, but as you can see it, pareho po ‘yung pangalan nila (the names are the same), Kokoy Villamin,” Adiong said. “‘Yung acknowledgment receipt from the (OVP) and at the same time, from the DepEd, the same person, Kokoy Villamin from Ozamiz.”
“Is it just a coincidence that the same two offices, headed by the same person, submitted the same (receipts) and encountered two persons with the same name? How likely would that be? Two persons with the same name bearing the same spelling, same last name, and the same first name,” he said.
COA confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) auditor Gloria Camora said the scenario was “highly unlikely,” pointing out that the handwriting and signatures on the ARs were obviously different.
“I think it’s very obvious, Mr. Chair, that the signatures on the (AR) submitted by the (OVP) are quite different from the (AR) received by the (DepEd). Parehong pangalan pero mukhang magkaiba (Same name but different signatures),” Adiong said.
Camora said the COA had two different auditors for the OVP and the Dep Ed, which the Vice President used to head as concurrent education secretary until she resigned last July.
“At that time, yes. The resident auditor, definitely they are different,” Camora said to which Adiong replied: “Yes, because if they have only one auditor, I think they would have flagged this immediately, why this person seems to be a single individual, but they have different signatures — exactly the same spelling and exactly the same family name.”
Adiong disclosed that nearly 4,500 ARs were submitted to COA to justify the CIFs — 2,670 from the OVP and 1,820 from DepEd, expressing concern over the lack of supporting evidence accompanying the receipts.
“These ARs were submitted as documentary evidence of supposed expenses using confidential funds. For the record, the OVP liquidated P500 million, and the DepEd liquidated P112.5 million, solely through these (ARs),” he said.
NO COMMENT
In an interview in Butuan City, the Vice President refused to comment on the questionable receipts discovered by lawmakers, including the one bearing the name of Piattos, saying she has not personally seen the ARs.
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Duterte however pointed to the OVP’s special disbursing office as the one handling the liquidation documents for confidential funds.
“I have no comment on that, ‘no, because I have not seen the acknowledgement receipt na kanilang sinasabi (because I have not seen the acknowledgment receipt that they are talking about). Because basically, lahat ng mga documents, hindi siya dumadaan sa akin. Dumidiretso siya sa SDO (special disbursing officer) and sina-submit siya sa… office ng COA na gumagawa ng audit ng confidential funds (all the documents don’t go through me. They go straight to the special disbursing officer and are submitted to the COA office that conducts an audit of the confidential funds),” she said.
“So hindi ako maka-comment lalong-lalo na hindi namin alam paano pinroseso ang pagbigay ng copies ng Ars or ng submissions namin sa COA to the House of Representatives, and sino ang nagha-handle noong mga documents (So I can’t comment, especially since we don’t know how they process the submission of ARs or our submissions to the COA to the House of Representatives and who are handling the documents),” Duterte added.
Yesterday, the Vice President made good on her earlier statement that she has no plans of attending the hearing, telling the panel again in a letter that she was not asked questions when she attended the first hearing last September.
“In view of the foregoing, I would like to respectfully inform you that I will not be attending the hearing scheduled on 20 November 2024,” she told the Chua panel.
The four OVP officials who were earlier cited in contempt by the committee for snubbing the hearing continued to ignore the panel despite its issuance of an arrest order against them last week.
SDO Gina Acosta, OVP assistant chief of staff and Bids and Awards Committee chair Lemuel Ortonio, former DepEd Assistant Secretary Sunshine Charry Fajarda and former DepEd SDO Edward Fajarda were no-shows at yesterday’s hearing.
The Fajardas transferred to the OVP after Duterte resigned as education secretary last July.
Chua warned the four of criminal charges under Article 150 of the Revised Penal Code, saying public officials are required to attend congressional investigations when they are invited, more so when they are subpoenaed.
“This is already our sixth hearing. They were given six opportunities to attend. Regardless of their excuse, I don’t find it justifiable,” Chua said.
The RPC imposes the penalty of arresto mayor (one month and one day to six months), or a fine of P40,000 to P200,000, or both, on “any person who, having been duly summoned to attend as a witness before Congress, its special or standing committee and subcommittees… refuses without legal excuse to obey such summons…”
It further provides: “The same penalty shall be imposed upon any person who shall induce disobedience to summons or refusal to be sworn by any such body or official.” The law also penalizes a summoned witness who “refuses to be sworn or placed under affirmation or to answer any legal inquiry.”
On the motion of Rep. Raul Angelo Bongalon (PL, Ako Bicol), the Chua panel cited Ortonio in contempt for the second time for allegedly disrespecting the committee, when he wrote lawmakers asking them to lift an earlier contempt order against him.
“For me, Mr. Chair, this is a continued defiance of a lawful order of this committee, and it is a sign of disrespect,” said Bongalon, who also moved that Ortonio be detained at the Bicutan jail in Taguig City for 10 days.
Rep. Raoul Manuel (PL, Kabataan) said Ortnio’s excuse that he was on “official travel” was “petty,” while Adiong called it a “a convenient excuse.”
On the motion of Taguig City Rep. Pammy Zamora, the panel forwarded the contempt and arrest orders against Ortonio, Acosta and the Fajardas to the Bureau of Immigration (BI) with a request that a lookout bulletin be issued “to prevent them from fleeing the country to evade our investigation.”
Chua said that if Zuleika Lopez, the OVP’s chief of staff, was able to attend yesterday’s hearing after a trip to the United States, he could not understand why the four continue to defy his committee.
Lopez and Rosalynne Sanchez, who heads the OVP administrative services department, could not tell who signed the travel orders for Ortonio, Acosta and the Fajardas, and what places they were allowed to travel to while admitting that it is “the head of the agency,” referring to the Vice President, who signs travel orders.
Lopez said she has not seen Ortonio’s travel authority letter because she just returned to office on Tuesday. “I have not seen at all Asec. Lemuel Ortonio and I understand that he is on official travel,” she said.
‘YOU’RE HIDING THEM’
Rep. Joseph Stephen Paduano (PL, Abang Lingkod), said the OVP was obviously hiding the four officials because the issuance of travel orders had no important details required by law such as the date, time and place.
“Mr. Chair, it’s not common, this is the first time,” Sanchez admitted after Paduano asked if it is a regular practice for travel orders to be issued “without dates, without the specific place.”
Paduano recalled that Acosta previously had a travel authority submitted to the hearing and it showed the date and the place, Bacolod City, where she went to the OVP’s satellite office.
“Now, today, ang problema niyo kasi Ma’am, Atty. Sanchez, alam mo ba ang problema niyo kasi ngayon nilalabas niyo na walang specific area. Ma’am, talagang tinatago niyo (the problem is Ma’am, Atty. Sanchez, you know you have a problem because you issued these travel orders now without a specific area. Ma’am, you’re really hiding them,” he said.
He warned Sanchez that she could be cited in contempt, too, for violating Section 11 of the House Rules on “undue interference.”
Sanchez explained that for the period of November 10 to 15, Acosta travelled to a satellite office in Bacolod city, but another travel order was issued for the period of November 18 to 22.
Paduano then replied: “Attorney, I just cited our internal rules. I hope you will answer truthfully so that this committee will not be forced to cite you in contempt, gano’n lang po (let’s leave it like that).”
NO PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE
During the hearing, Lopez repeatedly denied she had anything to do with the release and use of confidential funds, saying that such did not go through her.
“I have no personal knowledge on confidential funds,” the Vice President’s COS repeatedly told Batangas Rep. Gerville Luistro. “The documents did not pass through me,” she insisted.
Lopez said the same thing when she was asked by Rep. Ramond Rodrigo Gutierrez (PL, 1-Rider), saying that while she is an undersecretary and the COS, “I am purely handling operational concerns.”
“There are areas, for example, that I am not privy to, one of which is the matter of confidential expenses,” Lopez said. “Although I would wish to answer really, respectfully as regards the matter of confidential expenses, it is something that I have not really been privy to from the very beginning,” she said.
Lopez’s statements contradicted Sanchez’s who told the committee that only Acosta, Lopez, and Duterte, herself, knew how the funds were spent by the OVP and the DepEd.
‘NOT EVEN WITH A HELICOPTER’
Gutierrez said the acknowledgment receipts showed suspicious disbursement patterns by both Acosta at the OVP and Edward Fajarda at the DepEd, saying they distributed confidential funds across multiple, geographically distant locations in a single day.
Gutierrez cited records showing that Fajarda disbursed funds in seven different locations across the country in one day after encashing a P37.5 million check.
“On February 21, 2023, or the very next day after the SDO encashed the P37.5 million in checks, lumabas po sa (the ARs showed) that SDO Fajarda made seven disbursements already,” Gutierrez said. “This is the day after—in seven different locations: Malolos, Davao, San Francisco (Agusan del Sur), Makati City, Negros Oriental, Negros Occidental, and Davao City.”
Gutierrez said the check was issued and encashed at the Land Bank DepEd branch in Pasig “and immediately the next day, he traveled to these seven places and had these seven ARs.”
The lawmaker also cited a case on March 15, 2023, when Fajarda allegedly made 26 disbursements in a single day across locations spanning Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.
“On March 15, 2023, SDO Fajarda supposedly made 26 disbursements in the following locations: Davao del Sur, Surigao del Sur, Oriental Mindoro, Laguna, Zamboanga del Sur, Cebu, Ifugao, Antique, Batanes, Pampanga, Legazpi, Lanao del Norte, Batangas, Tarlac, Metro Manila, Samar, Davao de Oro, Agusan del Norte, Cavite, and Surigao del Norte,” he said.
“Even if we gave him (Fajarda) a helicopter, I don’t think he could do that in one day,” Gutierrez said.
DON’T COMPLY
Lopez admitted to lawmakers that the OVP, in a letter last August 21, asked the COA not to comply with the subpoena issued by the House for the submission of audit reports on its use of confidential funds, citing among many other reasons, the violation of constitutional principle of separation of powers.
She said the Vice President knew of the matter and that she also consulted with Ortonio before she signed the request letter sent to the COA.
Lopez, however, said the letter “does not seek to undermine the power of Congress.”
“It is simply a request to the Commission on Audit given that there is still an ongoing audit investigation. Since hindi pa naman natatapos yung audit, hindi naman din po tama na ibibigay na muna yung mga ganoong documents (Since the auditing is not yet done, I don’t think it proper to already submit such documents),” she said.
On the motion of Rep. France Castro (PL, ACT) of the militant Makabayan bloc, the Chua panel cited Lopez in contempt last night and ordered her detention at the Batasang Pambansa for five days or until Monday, when the panel holds its next hearing.
Castro moved to cite Lopez for contempt for undue interference because of her August 21 letter where she asked the COA not to comply with the subpoena issued by the House for the submission of audit reports on the OVP’s use of confidential funds.
Wendell Vigilia View all posts
