Impeached vice-president Sara Duterte-Carpio has sought to discredit claims of irregularities in her office, explaining publicly that the use of fictitious names in accounting of confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) were standard practice.
“I think it is wrong for everyone to pick up as truth or as a fact all the pronouncements of the members of the House of Representatives, particularly with the fictitious names, because there are rules in intelligence operations,” said Duterte-Carpio in The Hague, Netherlands where she is currently visiting her detained father, former president Rodrigo Duterte.
“You already heard some of intelligence, people who work in intelligence, say that aliases are often used in intelligence operations,” she added.
The Duterte-Carpio’s recent statement is a departure from her earlier stance that she will not publicly explain how intelligence funds were used by the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the agency that she once headed, the Department of Education (DepEd).
The Duterte-Carpio said she would only explain her CIF use at the Commission on Audit (COA) and when necessary before the impeachment court.
“I will not give an explanation because it will entail that I will [have to] explain intelligence operations. It will really compromise how they work,” she said before she was impeached by the Lower House last February. “So, no, no explanation will be given to members of the House of Representatives.”
Duterte-Carpio said that at this point, her camp is prepared to discuss the CIF issue in the looming impeachment trial.
“Our lawyers are preparing for the trial, collecting pieces of evidence and gathering affidavits from witnesses that they will present during the trial. We have an intelligence expert on our side, two actually, who will be our resource persons,” she revealed.
The House committee on Good Government and Public Accountability, which investigated her CIF use last year, found several acknowledgment receipts that contained several suspicious names like “Mary Grace Piattos.”
More weird names were later found like those resembling that of public officials, multiple “Fionas,” a “Magellan” and another individual with the surname “Ewan,” which is Tagalog for ‘I don’t know.’
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) later certified that “Mary Grace Piattos” had no birth, death or marriage record. It said 405 other names in Duterte-Carpio’s liquidation reports were also nonexistent.
The House probe also found that two acknowledgement receipts (ARs) for CIF — one for the Office of the Vice President and another for the Department of Education — were both received by a certain Kokoy Villamin but had different signatures and handwriting.
In reaction, Duterte-Carpio insisted that she would have to give out secret information if she disclosed the true identities of the recipients of the confidential funds.
At the House of Representatives, Rep. Joel Chua said it was a good thing that Duterte will finally address the issues but he believes she should have done it earlier.
Chua last year chaired the House committee on Good Government and Public Accountability that investigated the Duterte-Carpio CIF use.
“We have been waiting for this explanation for a long time already,” Chua remarked. “(Duterte-Carpio) should have addressed that during the committee hearings, because if they had, the issue on confidential funds would not have dragged on for so long. So why only now?”
