IT was in effect putting the cart before the horse.
Apparently running scared that alleged irregularities were discovered by state auditors, the Office of Vice President under Sara Duterte scrambled to fix liquidation papers, to the point of purportedly “over-liquidating” the P23.8 million confidential funds through alleged 158 “bogus and spurious” receipts.
“So, what you’re saying is they (OVP) exceeded in their liquidation reports?” Rep. Joel Chua, panel chairman of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability, asked 1-Rider Party-list Rep. Rodge Gutierrez on his discovery about the 158 questionable lapses in documentation.
“Your guess is as good as ours. It could also be that these ARs (acknowledgment receipts) were belatedly prepared,” the 1Rider party-list congressman – a lawyer by profession – observed, noting liquidation papers bore a December 2023 date when no confidential fund was disbursed in this period.
All in all, the OVP submitted 158 acknowledgment receipts to COA, covering various transactions.
“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).”
No less than Commission on Audit official Gloria Camora admitted before the committee that there may have been “inadvertence and typographical mistakes” committed by OVP personnel, where 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 conceded.
But Gutierrez was not convinced, noting the “red flags” it raised as they found the ARs to be “spurious and bogus” to say the least. “Didn’t you find it strange? Not really strange – it’s outright false for it to justify an expense for 2022 but the date is 2023.”
To prove his point further, the lawmaker – one of the leaders of the “Young Guns” group in the House – even showed ARs dated November 2022, when, in truth and in fact, confidential and intelligence funds were only disbursed a month later (December 2022) where the OVP spent P125 million in just 11 days.
There were also ARs bearing not just similar handwritings, 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 “purchase of information,” respectively, allegedly in December 2022.
There were a total of 776 ARs, 302 of which bore “unreadable names” with five “repeated names.”
House Quad Comm senior Vice Chairman 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 a potato chip “Piattos,” since one AR bore the same name, with Piattos as its surname.
For breakdown, AAS received a total windfall of P280,000 – P60,000 in December 2022, P150,000 in February 2023 and P70,000 in the third quarter of the same year.
But JOV was way, way much luckier with nearly a million pesos (P920,000) as his first AR for “reward payment” indicated P170,000, followed by P250,000 for vague “supplies” and the last was most substantial, 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?” Gutierrez asked. “We want to make sure that this doesn’t happen again. Accountability should be had on this.”
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