NBI, PSA can sort out celebrity names in OVP fund receipts – solon
MANILA, Philippines — A lawmaker confirmed on Sunday that they are verifying whether the names “Chel Diokno” and “Marian Rivera” that reportedly appeared in the documents linked to the disbursement of the Office of the Vice President’s confidential funds (CFs) are related to prominent personalities with the same name.
House Assistant Majority Leader and Lanao del Sur 1st District Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong said only the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) can confirm whether these names are indeed connected to known public figures — Atty Jose Manuel “Chel” Diokno, the Akbayan party-list representative – elect, and Rivera, a popular actress.
“In fact, the agencies that are tasked and also have the capacity to really assess and verify whether a certain Chel Diokno is indeed apart from the Chel Diokno that we’d be popularly know. There is one Chel Diokno that exists has an informant, an intelligence informant, possibly intelligence informant indeed receives acknowledgment receipts or payment,” Adiong said in an interview with dzBB on Sunday.
“So I guess the agencies that can actually help us, the public, to really know whether there are names like that there are PSA at NBI. That’s why from the very start we requested the assistance of these agencies,” he added.
The lawmaker explained that many acknowledgment receipts were not yet reviewed during the investigation of the House committee on good government and public accountability last year.
“In fact, just a portion of the acknowledgment receipts were at that time available to the good Government that we were able to see the discrepancies,” he added.
Adiong added that they have yet to review documents reportedly bearing the names of Diokno and Rivera.
On May 23, Rep. Diokno penned an online post citing reports that a name similar to his was linked to the disbursement of the OVP CF funds.
“Is everyone on the confidential funds list? They even included the name of Ma’am Marian and my name! That is just shameless!,” Akbayan party-list Rep. – elect Diokno said in Filipino
Aside from these names, CF recipients bearing the names “Mary Grace Piattos,” “Renan Piatos,” “Pia Piatos-Lim,” “Xiaome Ocho,” “Jay Kamote,” “Miggy Mango,” “Amoy Liu,” “Fernan Amuy,” and “Joug De Asim” were found to be non-existent over the past months.
In December last year, the House committee on good government and public accountability submitted 1,992 individuals linked to the alleged misuse of the OVP confidential funds under the helm of Vice President Duterte.
Citing PSA, Ortega said 670 of the 1,992 names had a “most likely match” in PSA records; 1,322 individuals had no birth records; 1,456 had no marriage records (with only 536 possible matches); and 1,593 had no death records (with just 399 possible matches).
Earlier, panel chair Manila 3rd District Rep. Joel Chua said 405 of the 667 names found on the ARs for the CFs of the DepEd have no record with the PSA.
