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MANILA, Philippines â This time, House lawmakers found names resembling groceries on the list of recipients of the Office of the Vice Presidentâs (OVP)Â confidential funds (CFs).
House Deputy Majority Leader Paolo Ortega V of La Union said on Sunday that the newly discovered names, dubbed âTeam Grocery,â further raised allegations that large sums of public money were allegedly funneled to fictitious individuals.
Below is the new list of questionable names that Ortega said have no official birth, marriage, or death records from the Philippine Statistics Authority:
- Beverly Claire Pampano, whose surname resembles a popular fish
- Mico Harina, whose surname translates to flour
- Sala Casim, whose surname is a homophone of âkasim,â a pork shoulder cut widely used in Filipino dishes like adobo and menudo
- Patty Ting, whose first name means a small flat cake of mincedÌęłŸ±đČčłÙ.
- Ralph Josh Bacon, whose last name resembles a cured and smoked pork
Ortega said the office of Vice President Sara Duterte submitted these names to the Commission on Audit.
âThe new names we found look like a shopping list for the market or grocery,â Ortega said in Filipino.
âIf they are not real people, where did the funds go?â he asked.
READ: Duterte-led DepEdâs secret fund receipts have âodorâ names â lawmaker
This was not the first time that lawmakers found odd names on the list of recipients of the OVP and the Duterte-led Department of Educationâs combined P612.5-million CFs.
CF recipients bearing the names âMary Grace Piattos,â âRenan Piatos,â âPia Piatos-Lim,â âXiaome Ocho,â âJay Kamote,â âMiggy Mango,â âAmoy Liu,â âFernan Amuy,â and âJoug De Asimâ were also flagged in the previous weeks.
âWhatâs even more concerning is that the list keeps growing. Is this just a typo? It seems like thereâs a deliberate effort to fabricate names to cover up where the funds were spent,â Ortega said in Filipino.
READ: More food names found on OVP secret fund receipts: Kamote, Mango
Ortega also noted that out of 1,992 supposed recipients of the OVPâs CF, 1,322 had no birth records, 1,456 had no marriage records, and 1,593 had no death records.
Meanwhile, Manila Rep. Joel Chua, chair of the House committee on good government and public accountability, revealed earlier that 405 out of the 677 names listed as beneficiaries of DepEdâs CFs have no birth records, an indication that the names were allegedly fabricated.