Piattos鈥� kin, 鈥榅iaome Ocho鈥� also got VP Sara Duterte’s funds 鈥� Ortega
La Union 1st District Rep. Paolo Ortega. OFFICIAL FB PAGE
MANILA, Philippines — Deputy Majority Leader Francisco Paolo Ortega V on Thursday said apparent “relatives” of Mary Grace Piattos along with a mobile phone brand namesake were among the supposed recipients of confidential funds in his review of evidence in the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte.
READ: ‘Mary Grace Piattos’ does not exist, PSA confirms
In a statement on Thursday, the administration lawmaker said a perusal of the Office of the Vice President’s (OVP) acknowledgment receipts for its P500-million confidential fund spending from December 2022 to September 2023 showed there were more names that were obviously made up apart from Piattos.
READ: House panel to PSA: Verify 1,992 names linked to OVP fund issue
The La Union representative vowed to continue reviewing the documents attached to the impeachment complaint transmitted to the Senate to uncover more members of what he described as the “Budol (Scam) Gang.”
According to Ortega, he found two names—Pia Piatos-Lim and Renan Piatos—which could be related to Piattos, except the last names were spelled with only one T. He also cited a Xiaome Ocho, which was seemingly taken from a Xiaomi mobile phone 2018 model, the Xiaomi Mi 8.
Submitted for validation
Piattos and the three other names were among 1,992 names submitted for validation to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) by the House of Representatives’ committee on good government. The PSA found that out of the 1,992 names of supposed OVP confidential fund recipients, 1,322 had no birth records, including Piattos, Piatos-Lim, Piatos, and Ocho.
Among such names in the OVP’s acknowledgment receipts with no PSA birth, marital, or death records were Kokoy Villamin; May Pamana; Dodong S Barok; Dan Rick and Alan Rick Otso; Glaiza Ranger; Jay Kamote; Roman, Rome, and Romeo Felicidad; and Miggy Mango.
“We thought only one name sounded absurd in the list of confidential fund recipients, but it seems there’s a whole family of ‘Piattos’ and a cell phone model included,” Ortega said in Filipino.
“You’ll be torn between laughing and getting furious when you see ‘Xiaome Ocho’ on the list,” Ortega said, referring to a 2018 cell phone model as a supposed confidential fund recipient.
“This ‘Budol Gang’ is getting out of hand. First, we have the Piattos family, and now even a cell phone?” he added.
Probe continues
Piattos, whose existence was initially questioned by Antipolo City Rep. Romeo Acop, supposedly received on Dec. 30, 2022, P70,000 as payment of reward in the form of “medicines.” The name has since become symbolic of the OVP’s questionable use of its confidential funds.
The P70,000 purportedly received by Piattos was part of the OVP’s P125-million confidential funds, which were reportedly spent in just 11 days of December 2022 for the following: the payment of rewards; the purchase of information, food, medicine, goods, and equipment; and the rental of safe houses and vehicles.
According to Ortega, Duterte needs to explain where the confidential funds went, given that apparently fabricated names were used as their supposed recipients.
“She needs to explain who exactly makes up this ‘Budol Gang’ when she presents her defense at the impeachment trial,” he said.
“We will continue reviewing the documents attached to the impeachment complaint to expose more members of this ‘Budol Gang,’” Ortega said. “The public deserves the truth. We shouldn’t pretend that a scam of this magnitude involving confidential funds didn’t happen.”
