Recipients of OVP Confidential Funds Go Through PSA Verification amid Issues
PSA – The Philippine Statistics Authority revealed that more than 1,300 recipients of the OVP Confidential Funds have no birth records.
The spending of the Confidential Funds of the Office of the Vice President (OVP) has become a national issue in the country. There are a lot of questions regarding the spending of the multi-million CIFs of the OVP and the House of Representatives has previously launched a series of hearings over the matter.
Amid the filing of impeachment complaints against Vice Pres. Sara Duterte, the House of Representatives ended its investigation on the OVP Confidential Funds. According to the lower chamber, they don’t want the probe to be used in the complaints as the inquiry was launched in aid of legislation.
Vice Pres. Duterte sees the positive side of the impeachment complaints. According to her, it will be a venue where she can address the accusations against her properly as there are rules for impeachment.
Currently, there are two (2) impeachment complaints filed against Duterte and both included the budget spending of the office led by the Vice President as part of the reasons.
Amid the issues, several records found in the receipts of the supposed recipients of the Office of the Vice President went through the scrutiny of the Philippine Statistics Authority. However, based on a report on GMA News, more than 1,300 recipients of the Confidential Funds have no birth records.
The identities of 1,992 names tagged as the alleged recipients of the OVP have been verified by the PSA and the national statistics body found that 1,322 lacked birth records. Only 670 names have “most likely” match in the records of the national statistician.
Furthermore, there were 1,456 names submitted with no matching marriage records and only 536 have possible matches. Based on the report, 1,593 have no death records and only 399 have possible matches in the death records held by the national statistician.
“This certification from the PSA leaves little doubt — if these names cannot be found in the civil registry, it strongly suggests they do not exist. The acknowledgment receipts may have been manufactured to justify the disbursement of confidential funds,” House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability chairman Joel Chua said.
Recently, the Commission on Audit revealed that the Office of the President is the biggest Confidential and Intelligence Funds spender in 2023. Vice Pres. Sara Duterte has reacted to COA’s statement that Marcos’ office is the top confidential funds spender.