Brosas: VP’s use of snack brands and grocery items ‘true height of stupidity’
Assistant Minority Leader Arlene Brosas has advised Vice President Sara Duterte to stay in her lane, telling the impeached official to manage her own issues instead of worrying about her father’s case at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The Gabriela Women’s Party-list representative slammed Duterte’s description of lawyers for extrajudicial killing victims as “stupid” when using snack brands and grocery items as confidential fund recipients was the “true height of stupidity.”
House impeachment prosecutor Gerville Luistro asserted that using pseudonyms or fake names in proofs of payment for confidential funds wasn’t allowed in the Commission on Audit rules as it would prevent a true accounting of how the public fund was spent.
In a statement on Monday, Brosas said: “I strongly condemn Vice President Sara Duterte’s recent statements downplaying the evidence presented before the ICC on the systematic killings during the Duterte administration’s war on drugs.”
“Her dismissive remarks on the ICC investigation are not only insensitive but reveal a dangerous disregard for human rights and justice,” she asserted.
The lawmaker emphasized that the 43 counts of murder were “not merely isolated cases but represent a systematic pattern of state-sponsored violence that claimed thousands of lives, mostly from poor communities.”
Brosas pointed out that “43” wasn’t just a number but stood for “43 families who lost loved ones, 43 communities who experienced violence, and 43 proofs that there was systematic killing.”
‘Height of stupidity’
Duterte was quoted as saying in a media interview in The Hague, “How can you prove systematic killing of 30,000 victims if you do not have the names of 30,000 victims?” She further said, “This is 43 counts of murder, not even 50. So, where is the system there of killing thousands? Sorry. Ang bobo iyong abogado nila (The one who’s stupid is their lawyer).”
The lawmaker advised Duterte, “Instead of calling others stupid, Vice President Sara should look at her own issues,” pointing out, “Ang totoong rurok ng kainutilan ay iyong maglagay ng pangalan ng chichirya at grocery items bilang recipient ng confidential funds (The true height of stupidity is making snack brands and grocery items as confidential fund recipients).”
“The truth can’t be hidden behind insults and avoidance of the real issue,” she added, stressing that “Vice President Sara Duterte should address her own controversies before attempting to dismiss serious human rights investigations.”
Duterte is set to be tried by the Senate as an impeachment court on the grounds of culpable violation of the Constitution, betrayal of public trust, graft and corruption and other high crimes. The seven articles of impeachment include her alleged misuse of P612.5 million in confidential funds of the the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education, and her threat to assassinate President Marcos, First Lady Liza Marcos and Speaker Martin Romualdez.
‘Team Grocery’
On Sunday, La Union Rep Francisco Paolo Ortega V found more strange names, resembling grocery items, among supposed beneficiaries of the OVP’s P500-million confidential funds.
He listed Beverly Claire Pampano, Mico P. Harina, Patty Ting, Ralph Josh Bacon, and Sala Casim as members of “Team Grocery.” He pointed out that they, like Mary Grace Piattos, had no birth, marital, or death records in the Philippine Statistics Authority.
Other likely fabricated names he previously found in the list of supposed OVP confidential fund recipients include: Pia Piatos-Lim, Renan Piatos, Xiaome Ocho, Miggy Mango, Jay Kamote, Dodong S. Barok, Dodong Alcala, Dodong Bina, Dodong Bunal and Dodong Darong.
They were among nearly 2,000 names in acknowledgment receipts submitted by the OVP to the Commission on Audit to justify its spending of P500 million in confidential funds. But verification with the PSA showed that 1,322 of the names had no birth records.
In an interview on Monday on the ABS-CBN News Channel, Luistro, a Batangas representative, maintained that there was no provision in the Joint Circular no 2015-01 governing confidential and intelligence funds allowing the use of fake identities in signing for payments.
Luistro stressed: “I don’t think that the law, Joint Circular 2015-01, has a provision which expressly allows the use of fake identities, or should I say confidential identities, to hide the personalities of the real recipients of the confidential funds.”
“We are maintaining the position that the joint circular is intended to have a clear accounting, a true accounting of the disbursement of public funds, and that includes confidential funds,” she asserted, adding that the utilization of confidential funds should be well-accounted.
The impeachment prosecutor further attested to the authenticity of the documents containing the “dubious” names of OVP and Department of Education confidential fund recipients, saying, “I am morally certain that the documents are genuine. As a matter of fact these documents came from the COA on our issuance of subpoena duces tecum.”
Luistro pointed out that the “dubious” names were discovered during the investigation by the House committee on good government and public accountability, emphasizing, “Even us, we didn’t anticipate that we will be discovering all these names.”
