Lawmakers at the House of Representatives have put up a P1-million reward for anyone able to give information about a certain Mary Grace Piattos. This individual supposedly signed acknowledgment receipts justifying confidential funds of the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education.
The House is looking into how the Vice President spent P500 million through her office and another P112.5 million through the Department of Education, which she headed until June this year.
The next hearing intended to get to the bottom of the OVP’s controversial confidential funds is today. Vice President Sara Duterte has said she is not attending. She would just submit an affidavit on the issue, likely to insist that there have been no irregularities whatsoever on her use of the people’s money.
We never expected much from Duterte; it is only logical for her to skip yet another hearing. If she were even willing to give a sufficient explanation for those funds under oath, she would have done so when she was first asked about them, instead of being haughty and instead of crying persecution.
In fact, if she wanted to be transparent to begin with, she would not have had a centavo of confidential funds at all. What is inherently a secret in those two agencies that they should need millions of pesos without any accounting whatsoever?
She may not be used to being questioned and held accountable, but some things have to change.
But in Ms. Duterte’s absence, would the sought-after Ms. Piattos miraculously appear?
On the surface, “Mary Grace Piattos” is hilarious. Imagine, for the sake of argument, that MGP were not a real person: how difficult is it to use a more believable name? But no, the fakers were either too lazy or they did not think it was even worth the time to think of one.
The issue soon ceases being funny and becomes infuriating instead: it shows a cavalier attitude in committing something as reprehensible as creating fictitious identities to perpetuate corruption. It is taking a grave issue lightly, much like laughing or jesting while talking about the killing of thousands in the guise of a war against drugs.
The Philippine Statistics Authority should find it easy to provide details of this person so people can stop speculating and making memes.
The questions are mounting, and if there are no satisfactory answers soon, Ms. Duterte, Ms. Piattos, and all the others in their circle would have to face a reckoning. It’s tempting to say we can just grab a bag of chips as we entertain ourselves with these developments – but no. This is our tragedy, too. We cannot be mere spectators.
