House offers P1M reward for info on 'Mary Grace Piattos' amid OVP fund probe

A P1 million reward is being offered for information leading to the whereabouts of 'Mary Grace Piattos,' whose signature reportedly appeared most frequently on acknowledgment receipts for confidential funds allocated to offices under Vice President Sara Duterte.

The House good government and public accountability panel is seeking assistance from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), and the Philippine National Police (PNP) to identify 'Mary Grace Piattos' and verify the identities of individuals listed as recipients of multi-million-peso confidential and intelligence funds (CIFs) disbursed by the Office of the Vice President (OVP).

Lawmakers suspect that the acknowledgment receipts are 'bogus' and that the names on them are 'fictitious,' with one representative noting that 'Mary Grace Piattos' appears to be a mash-up of a restaurant and a potato chips brand.

The committee is also considering consulting a penmanship expert due to striking similarities in handwriting and ink across a number of receipts, suggesting they may have been signed with the same pen by the same person.

Vice President Duterte has dismissed the inquiry into the OVP and DepEd budget use as politically motivated.