EXPLAINER: Who is Mary Grace Piattos and why are people looking for that 'person'?
Wanted: Mary Grace Piattos. The name has been all over the headlines and social media feeds lately, and a P1 million reward is being offered to anyone who can provide details about her.
Mary Grace Piattos' signature appeared in acknowledgment receipts for confidential funds of the offices held by Sara Duterte: the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and, from 2022 to 2023, the Department of Education (DepEd).
But administration lawmakers aren't buying it, believing that the "person" isn't real.
On Monday, Nov. 18, the House good government and public accountability committee announced it's offering a reward worth P1 million for any information on Mary Grace Piattos.
"[Mahalagang] malaman natin kung ano 'yung katotohanan," said Zambales Rep. Jefferson Khonghun, committee vice chairman, in a press conference. "Napaka-importante na ‘yung mga tao mismo na tumanggap ng pondo, pumirma sa acknowledgement receipt, makausap at maka-attend ng hearing. Isa na nga dito, si Mary Grace Piattos."
Duterte has been in hot water for the alleged misuse of funds for her office's socioeconomic programs and her refusal to answer questions regarding her office's expenses, particularly the confidential funds worth P775 million for the OVP and DepEd during her budget proposal's first hearing.
She was seeking a P2.037-billion budget for 2025, which was cut to P733 million. Her office has a P1.885-billion budget for 2024.
Meme material
Mary Grace Piattos has been a hot topic online, with Filipinos poking fun at her name.
A user on X jokingly asked about the middle name of the supposed person.
Another user on X, meanwhile, wrote an open letter to Mary Grace Piattos, requesting her appearance in the congressional hearings. The user signed the letter "Jack & Jill Contis," in an apparent reference to the snack brand (Jack 'n Jill) and bakeshop (Conti's).
FTTM or Follow the Trend Movement, a Facebook page that shares memes with over 4.6 million followers, posted a photo juxtaposing the Mary Grace and Piattos brands.
"[R]eceived by," FTTM wrote in the caption, alluding to the signatory in question.
On X, the page also created a challenge asking followers to make an alias based on the last restaurant they dined in and the last chips they consumed.
Meanwhile, literary magazine San Anselmo Publications on Facebook gave a prompt for its online poetry contest titled "Mary Grace Piattos," asking participants to write about a deceitful subject.
Was Mary Grace Piattos taken from a cafe and chips brand's names?
In a Nov. 5 hearing, Antipolo 2nd District Rep. Romeo Acop asked a Commission on Audit (COA) official about Mary Grace Piattos, pointing out that Mary Grace is the name of a cafe while Piattos is the name of a chips brand.
“Now, sa tingin mo, totoong tao ‘yan? What’s your opinion?” Acop asked COA Auditor Gloria Camora.
“It could be a person,” Camora said.
She initially insisted it read as “Piatty,” but Acop said it looks “Piattos” to him.
Acop said the name was among the signatories in over 1,200 deficient acknowledgment receipts (ARs) which the OVP had submitted to the COA in a bid to justify its P125-million expenditure.
The COA had also noted that the amounts corresponding to the deficient ARs were among the P73 million it had disallowed out of the 2022 confidential funds.
Erroneous documents
The COA said the OVP and DepEd submitted documents with wrong dates, signatures without names of signatories, and unreadable names of signatories to justify the disbursement of the offices' confidential funds in 2022 and 2023.
Camora confirmed that ARs for the disbursement of confidential funds in 2022 were dated December 2023.
She said the commission doesn't have data on the exact number of ARs, while some of them were undated.
She also confirmed that there were 787 ARs with unnamed signatories and 302 ARs with unreadable names of signatories submitted by the OVP and DepEd to justify its confidential fund use in 2023.
Mary Grace Piattos' name was found in these documents.
Curiously, other documents included names resembling brands like “Nova,” “Oishi,” and “Tempura.” Some of them, meanwhile, only contained initials like “AAS” and “JOV.”
Camora said the venue of the Youth Leadership Summit (YLS) in 2023 also didn't match the locations where DepEd obtained information paid for by its confidential fund.
In a hearing last October, it was found that DepEd used certifications from military officials—without their knowledge—to justify the disbursement of confidential funds worth P15 million to supposedly pay informants in 2023. DepEd cited the OVP's documentary submissions to COA stating that the expense was for the YLS.
Camora quoted the OVP’s response to COA regarding the erroneous ARs, which said they “have inadvertently contained clerical or typographical error indicating 2023 instead of 2022.”
In its response, the OVP added that the errors were supposedly due to the “nature of confidential activities which are usually conducted discreetly and completed within a short period of time in addition to the lack of attention to detail of personnel attending to the voluminous papers."
It also noted that “some dates and ARs submitted as proof of transaction may have been missed."