Palace: Sara Duterte should explain new names of confi fund ‘recipients’

Malacañang on Monday maintained that Vice President Sara Duterte has the obligation to explain additional names found as supposed recipients of confidential funds from the Department of Education (DepEd) during her stint as secretary.

“We believe that VP Sara has the obligation to tell something about these, to tell something about these discoveries,” Palace Press Officer Undersecretary Claire Castro said during a press briefing. 

''Marami na po ang naglilipana patungkol sa mga pekeng resibo na diumanong na-issue po ng opisina po ni VP Sara. So, mas mabuti po… sinasabi naman po niya na dapat po tayo ay may transparency. Mas maganda po na mauna po siya na ipaliwanag po ito,'' she added.

This came after House Deputy Majority Leader Francisco Paolo Ortega V bared the new names found as alleged recipients of confidential funds from the DepEd during the Vice President’s stint as secretary.

The new set of names which Ortega dubbed as “Team Amoy Asim” included: “Amoy Liu,” “Fernan Amuy,” and “Joug De Asim.”

Ortega had said the names submitted by the DepEd and the Office of the Vice President (OVP) to the Commission on Audit (CoA), have no birth, marriage, or death records in the Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) database.

To recall, the DepEd, which Duterte led at the time, and the OVP had submitted documents with allegedly wrong dates, signatures without names of signatories, and unreadable names of signatories to justify the disbursement of its confidential funds in 2022 and 2023.

Among the signatories was “Mary Grace Piattos,” who has no record with the Philippine Statistics Authority. 

GMA News Online reached out to the camp of the Vice President for comment and will publish it as soon as available.

Duterte has since maintained that there was no misuse in the funds of her office and the DepEd.—with Giselle Ombay/AOL, GMA Integrated News