House panel offers P1-M bounty on 'Piattos' lead

Members of the House of Representatives have offered a P1 million reward for anyone who can provide leads about Mary Grace Piattos, one of the "fictitious" signatories on the documents pertaining to the use of multi-million confidential funds by the Office of the Vice President (OVP).

According to Zambales Rep. Jefferson Khonghun, members of the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability and House Quad Committee chipped in to raise the bounty in a bid to hasten their efforts to present Piattos in the next congressional hearing. 

“Because we want this committee hearing to be over, we have volunteered to offer a reward of P1 million to anyone who can tell or provide information on who Mary Grace Pattos is,” said Khonghun, vice chair of the good government panel, in a briefing on Monday. 

“We want to know if there is a truth to the identity of Mary Grace Piattos […] because we don't believe that Mary Grace Piattos really exists,” he added.

Piattos was among the signatories in the acknowledgment receipts (ARs) submitted by the OVP to the Commission on Audit (CoA) to justify the use of P612.5 confidential funds that Duterte received in 2022 and 2023.

Of the sum, P112.5 million was allocated to the Department of Education during Duterte's stint as its secretary.

During the fourth inquiry of the good government panel on 5 November, Antipolo Rep. Romeo Acop questioned one of the ARs dated 30 December 2022, bearing the name of  Piattos, whom he claimed was a combination of a papular restaurant and a potato chip brand.

CoA auditor Gloria Camora confirmed that Duterte’s office submitted 787 ARs with no names but signatures, 302 ARs that had unreadable names, and five ARs bearing the same name.

Lawmakers have questioned the authenticity of the ARs given that some had incorrect dates, adding to their suspicions that the documents were fabricated or hastily prepared to justify the use of the secret funds.

Acop also implied that the ARs appeared to be signed by the same pen with identical ink signatures.

Acop previously chided Camora for heavily relying on documentary proof of payment submitted by Duterte’s office, with no way to verify the authenticity of the information in the ARs. 

“If you see the acknowledgment receipts, the [ink used] seems to be the same… The ARs are really fictitious. It’s like that the acknowledgment receipts are a list in a sari-sari store, with only nicknames there,” Deputy Majority Leader Paolo Ortega V told reporters in the same briefing. 

According to Khonghun, Piattos allegedly received the biggest chunk of confidential funds disbursed by the OVP in merely 11 days in December 2022.

“So we want to set an example. We want to know the truth because it follows. Without Mary Grace Piattos, I'm sure almost everyone there [in the ARs] is fictitious,” he asserted. 

"Who and where is Mary Grace Piattos so we can at least get to know her because she has a beautiful [and] delicious name. It makes me hungry,” Khonghun sarcastically said.

The good government panel is set to resume its investigation into the so-called irregularities in the use of secret funds by Duterte’s office and the DepEd on Tuesday. 

Duterte, who has denied the allegations, is headstrong that she will never attend the congressional probe, which she claimed is aimed to impeach her.

Earlier, CoA ordered the OVP to return P73.287 million of the portion of its secret funds, which was not used for surveillance and confidential operations as intended.