COA studying fraud audit on OVP, DepEd confidential funds

By Francis Allan L. Angelo

An auditor from the Commission on Audit told the Impeachment Court that the agency is studying the possibility of launching a fraud audit against the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education over the “unusual” names of recipients of confidential funds from the two agencies, both of which were once headed by Vice President Sara Duterte.

“Pinag-aaralan pa lang po with the Chairperson [Gamaliel Cordoba],” COA auditor Xylene Mae del Campo told the court on the 15th day of the impeachment trial, after Senator-judge Bam Aquino asked whether auditors had conducted a fraud audit on the use of confidential funds by the OVP and DepEd.

“Kung mag-fraud audit po, this is the first time,” Del Campo said.

“‘Yung documents po, ‘yung transactions involving OVP and DepEd contain voluminous documents na with sensitive information na ‘pag naibigay po sa ibang opisina baka ma-expose siya,” she added.

Aquino said his lawyers consulted former COA Commissioner Heidi Mendoza over what he called “strange” names of supposed recipients of the confidential funds of the OVP and DepEd.

The names include “Mary Grace Piattos,” who is said to have received PHP 70,000; “Ralph Joseph Bacon,” who is said to have received PHP 150,000; and “Matthew N Keso,” who supposedly received PHP 250,000.

“May Piattos, may Bacon, Heart, Keso, at kung ano. Hindi niyo po ba naisip na red flag ito?” Aquino asked.

“Nag-consult na kasi yung iba naming abogado kay former Commissioner Heidi Mendoza at sabi niya, kapag may mga kakaibang pangalan, the COA can trigger an investigation because of fraud,” he said.

Del Campo said auditors had not yet examined the seemingly fraudulent names more closely because they were assuming regularity, given that the Special Disbursing Officers of both offices under Duterte declared under oath that the money was used for confidential operations.

Aquino said Republic Act No. 6085 bans the use of aliases, and stressed that government auditing rules require each acknowledgement receipt to correspond strictly to a real, verifiable individual.

Del Campo is from the COA’s Intelligence and Confidential Funds Audit Office and took over the auditing of the confidential fund use of the OVP and DepEd from state auditor Roderick Wamil.

Both Del Campo and Wamil were tasked to determine whether the agencies then headed by Duterte had spent the confidential funds allocated to them, including the PHP 125 million the OVP burned through in 11 days during the holiday season and other amounts used for events such as Christmas parties.