WHAT kind of people in the public sphere would use the name of a man who died 61 years ago and the name of a two-month-old infant to cover the tracks of their reckless confidential fund spending? Warped minds, if we go by the Filipino tradition — the tradition is also practiced universally — of not kicking the dead and not exploiting infants.
What kind of people in the public sphere would use the name of dead people and infants multiple times to cover the tracks of their reckless confidential fund spending? Warped minds operating with a sense of impunity is the answer. And totally practiced in the art of ignoring institutionalized spending rules, Commission on Audit (COA) spending and reporting guidelines, the established systems of public procurement, accountability and prudence in using public money. Jettisoning the norms of both democracy and basic decency.
The names of 37 dead people and 25 minors, including a two-month-old, were indeed listed as beneficiaries of Vice President Sara Duterte’s confidential funds, assistant national statistician Marizza Grande told the senator-judges in the ongoing impeachment trial of Duterte. The House of Representatives voted to impeach Duterte on several grounds, including the allegation that she squandered hundreds of millions of pesos in confidential funds in reckless spending sprees with no documentary support except for a list of fake and nonexistent beneficiaries. Senators currently sit as judges in the impeachment court and will render a verdict on Duterte at the close of the trial. Grande was asked to testify on the legitimacy of the names.
Grande dropped another bombshell: A total of 1,685 names listed as beneficiaries of Duterte’s confidential funds were found to be “nonexistent” in the civil registry. Grande, who refused to wade into the merits of the case and the guilt or innocence of Duterte merely said those names — the names of the dead and minors listed as confidential fund beneficiaries — were “unusual and unique.”
That the fresh batch of confidential fund beneficiaries recently revealed at the impeachment trial included the long dead and infants — dead that according to our norms should not be desecrated and minors that should not be exploited for any purpose whatsoever — was not unexpected. The staffers tasked to handle the liquidation of the confidential funds generously granted to Duterte in her dual role as vice president and secretary of education from mid-2022 to 2023 were, without doubt, given extraordinary latitude in finding names, any name but preferably on the bizzarro side, that would sign the acknowledgment receipts.
And the Duterte staffers used that wide latitude to scavenge for names from infant rolls. Names from the rolls of the long dead. Names obviously plucked from thin air. Names that can’t be seriously associated with legitimate intelligence-gathering. Names that can only be conjured by warped minds with vehement intent. From the names listed in the acknowledgment receipts, you can get the idea that there was no serious intelligence-gathering done.
Was there a distinct possibility that they lurked around actual cemeteries looking at names on headstones? Like total creeps?
And the total bill charged to public coffers for the production of names that kicked the dead and exploited the infants, among other things? A staggering P625 million, according to House prosecutors.
If the latest batch of names that appeared as signatories in the acknowledgement receipts were names that violated the dead and exploited the defenseless, the previous names rattled off in the course of the trial offered no intimation of civility either. One supposed intelligence fund beneficiary was surnamed “Pagong.” Another surname was “Pusa.” One other surname was “Belat.” One was surnamed “Ngitngit,” or rage. Rage has been the default position of the Duterte camp to any accusation of official impropriety. To lash out. To express outrage in maximal terms. Do you still recall the verbal abuse suffered by the COA auditors from former president Rodrigo Duterte after the release of unfavorable COA audits?
The vulgar, nonhuman names such as Pagong, Pusa, Belat and Ngitngit are now official entries in the COA fund liquidation literature.
The violation of the defenseless and the side serving of vulgarity were not the only transgressions done by the name conjurers in the Duterte camp. The staffers also assaulted the law of probability. With the Lapid surname mostly confined to the two Pampanga towns of Guagua and Porac, why were there, in a nation of 116 million people, two intelligence fund beneficiaries surnamed Lapid? Finding a Filipino surnamed Lapid is just like trying to find a needle in a proverbial haystack. And yet, two Lapids have been listed as intelligence fund beneficiaries.
The House prosecution panel has yet to ask this question. Who in the world is “Mary Grace Piattos?” That name is also listed as a confidential fund beneficiary. “Mary Grace” is the name of a popular bakery-cum restaurant. Piattos is the name of a popular chips brand. Other than “Mary Grace Piattos,” there are beneficiaries carrying the name “Bacon” and other foodstuff.
The culinary world, it turns out, is another gold mine for the name scavengers of the Duterte universe.
