MARY Grace Piattos, Renan Piattos, Chippy McDonald, Fernando Tempura, Carlos Oishi, Mickey Mouse, Jay Kamote and Miggy Mango.
These are just some of the patently fictitious names appearing on the acknowledgment receipts (ARs) issued by the Office of the Vice President (OVP) to justify the disbursement of millions of pesos in confidential funds.
To an ordinary taxpayer wondering where his or her hard-earned money went, the use of such absurd aliases speaks of unmatched audacity and brazenness on the part of the persons who prepared and signed the documents, suggesting they did not even care enough to make the names look real — like Jose Velarde, for instance.
But we learned at the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte that the use of such ridiculous aliases on ARs triggered no alarm bells among the auditors who reviewed the documents.
Testifying on the 13th day of the trial, former Commission on Audit (COA) state auditor Roderick Wamil said Joint Circular 2015-01, which establishes a standard government framework for the entitlement, release, use, reporting and auditing of confidential and intelligence funds (CIF), was silent on the use of fictitious names, code names or aliases, saying this was “neither allowed nor prohibited.”
Questioned by the senator-judges, Wamil emphasized that the COA’s audit process under the joint circular is purely compliance- and document-based. Because of this design limit — state auditors examine documents only on their face value — the COA has no mechanism or investigative tool to independently verify if a name appearing on an AR is a real person, a legal alias, or a completely fictitious creation to illegally siphon off public funds.
Wamil noted that state auditors operate under the presumption that listed names belong to real, legitimate individuals. Under standard auditing principles, when an agency submits a signed receipt, the auditor presumes an actual person received those public funds unless a formal investigation or subpoena proves otherwise.
Wamil’s testimony highlighted a core structural gap in Joint Circular 2015-01: because the circular does not explicitly require proof of real-world identity for confidential receipts — and does not explicitly ban aliases — the OVP was able to submit lists of nonsensical names on ARs while technically claiming compliance with the letter of paper-based audit rules.
This led several lawmakers to call for an immediate revision of the joint circular to close the loophole, a recommendation that is both justified and urgent.
Senator-judge Panfilo Lacson, for example, observed that the COA rules governing the audit of confidential and intelligence funds need to be updated and expanded to ensure greater accountability.
He raised the need to revisit the joint circular after Wamil said the agency’s audit of CIF was limited to a document-based compliance audit under current guidelines.
“Why are you limited to paper audits? Don’t you have physical audits? It seems your current auditing system is lacking. How would you know if the one signing the acknowledgment receipts is a legitimate person if you cannot determine if the person behind the alias is a real person?” Lacson said.
In the case of the OVP, the failure to submit official receipts to support the acknowledgment receipts led auditors to take a closer look. Auditors also found that hundreds of acknowledgment receipts bearing completely different recipient names shared virtually identical handwriting — a sign that they were filled out by a single person or a small group of people rather than individual recipients.
Still, it has become apparent that improving the audit process requires shifting from superficial administrative compliance to substantive forensic verification.
Joint Circular 2015-01 should be amended to include explicit rules banning unverified pseudonyms or requiring that any codename or alias used on an acknowledgment receipt be tied to a sealed, cryptographically indexed operative registry held under oath by the agency head. Moreover, the rules must explicitly state that ARs can only be used for paying cash rewards to confidential informants. All operational rentals, equipment, food, medical supplies, or logistics must strictly require official receipts or sales invoices. Red-flag limits should also be imposed on rapid disbursements, such as liquidating tens of millions of pesos within a few days, or right before the end of the fiscal year, which should trigger mandatory pre-audit reviews.
Stricter limits on the use of confidential and intelligence funds can also be introduced by way of new legislation, such as those found in House Bill 1467.
Finally, there is a need to strengthen and expand the COA’s audit capacity. Its Intelligence and Confidential Fund Audit Office, which handles audits for hundreds of national agencies and over 1,700 local government units, is typically staffed with fewer than 10 people. Increasing its budget would enable it to boost its personnel and acquire the forensic tools they need to better protect public funds from abuse.
