PSA: No records of 'Mary Grace Piattos' in our database

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) has informed the House committee on good government and public accountability that it has no record of "Mary Grace Piattos" in its database.

In a letter to House panel chairperson Rep. Joel Chua, National Statistician and Civil Registrar General Claire Dennis Mapa sent a certification which stated that "Piattos" has no certificate of live birth (COLB), certificate of marriage (COM), and certificate of death (COD) in their database.

The certification was issued on November 25 and was received by Chua's office on Monday at 4:32 p.m.

LOOK: PSA tells House good government panel that there was no birth, death, nor marriage record of Mary Grace Piattos in their database. Piattos’ signature appeared in the acknowledgement receipts for confidential funds of offices under Vice President Sara Duterte. @gmanews pic.twitter.com/RoZ4en1sqJ

— Hana Bordey (@HanaBordey) December 3, 2024

While there are no records of "Mary Grace Piattos" in its database, Mapa said the PSA can search further if additional information such as the name of parents, and the date and place of the vital event can be provided to the PSA.

Chua said the House panel has been suspecting that ''Mary Grace Piattos'' is a fictitious person. The PSA findings will be included in the committee report on the legislative inquiry, he added.

“Parang bogus ‘yung acknowledgement receipts na lumalabas….Siguro ang magiging next step namin baka pati yung iba ipapa-check na rin namin ‘yung ibang mga names,” he said in an interview.

(It now seems that the acknowledgement receipts were bogus. Maybe our next step is to submit the other names involved to the PSA for verification.)

GMA News Online sought the comment of the Office of the Vice President (OVP) regarding the PSA certification, but it has yet to respond as of posting time.

The House panel earlier put up a P1-million reward for any information on "Mary Grace Piattos," whose signature appeared the most in acknowledgement receipts for confidential funds of offices under Vice President Sara Duterte.

It was earlier revealed that the OVP and Department of Education (DepEd) submitted documents with wrong dates, signatures without names of signatories, and unreadable names of signatories to justify the disbursement of its confidential funds in 2022 and 2023.

COA auditor Gloria Camora said many acknowledgment receipts (ARs) were dated December 2023, but the auditing team does not have the data on the exact number. She said there were also undated ARs.

Further, COA confirmed that there were 787 acknowledgement receipts with unnamed signatories and 302 ARs with unreadable names of signatories submitted by the OVP and DepEd to justify its confidential fund use in 2023.

Duterte previously stated that she has not seen the acknowledgement receipts for confidential funds supposedly signed by "Mary Grace Piattos." — with a report from Sundy Locus/VDV/VBL, GMA Integrated News