The Philippine Statistics Authority told the Senate that nearly two-thirds of the people listed as recipients of Vice President Sara Duterte's confidential funds have no birth, marriage, or death records, including one payee whose name matches a popular snack chip.

PSA Assistant National Statistician Marizza Grande appeared before the Senate impeachment trial on Monday and delivered testimony that stripped away whatever cover the Office of the Vice President's paperwork was supposed to provide. Grande told senators her agency cross-referenced the OVP's own list of 1,992 confidential-fund payees against the PSA's Civil Registry System, the national database that logs every Filipino's birth, marriage, and death, and found that 1,287 of them had no record of any kind.

That is roughly 65 percent of the names the vice president's office submitted to the Commission on Audit to justify its spending of confidential funds. The numbers were no better at the Department of Education, where Duterte previously served as secretary. Of 677 DepEd payees on a separate list, 398, about 59 percent, likewise had no civil registry records, INQUIRER.net reported.

A payee named after potato chips had no birth certificate

The name that first drew public attention to the confidential-fund lists was "Mary Grace Piattos." Piattos is a well-known snack brand in the Philippines, a flavored potato chip sold in convenience stores across the country. Questions about the name surfaced in 2024, when the House committee on good government and public accountability began investigating Duterte's use of the funds.

Grande confirmed what skeptics had suspected for two years. She told the Senate plainly:

"Based on our CRS [Civil Registry System] database, there is no one named Mary Grace Piattos in our records."

OVP acknowledgement receipts submitted to the Commission on Audit listed "Mary Grace Piattos" as having received P70,000, roughly $1,200, described as "payment of rewards." No further detail about what rewards those were, or what services the supposed payee performed, appeared in the testimony.

1,322 OVP payees had no live birth certificates at all

Grande broke the OVP numbers down further. Of the 1,992 names on the vice president's payee list, 1,322 had no live birth certificates. Another 1,456 had no marriage records. And 1,593 had no death certificates in the PSA database. The overlap among those categories produced the combined figure of 1,287 individuals with no civil registry record of any type, birth, marriage, or death.

The DepEd list followed the same pattern. Out of 677 payees, 405 had no live birth certificates, 443 had no marriage records, and 507 had no death certificates. Grande summed it up for the Senate:

"Out of the 677 DepEd payees list, out of the 677, we found that 398 of them had no birth, marriage or death records."

Put differently, the Philippine government's own record-keeper could not verify that the majority of the people Duterte's offices claimed to have paid actually exist, or ever existed, as registered Filipino citizens.

Acknowledgement receipts were the OVP's only paper trail

Confidential funds, by their nature, carry fewer disclosure requirements than ordinary government expenditures. The OVP relied on acknowledgement receipts submitted to the Commission on Audit to justify its spending. Those receipts listed names and amounts. But the PSA's testimony now calls into question whether the names on those receipts correspond to real people.

Grande's testimony did not address how much money flowed to the full list of payees, only the P70,000 tied to the Piattos name appeared in the record. The total confidential-fund outlay across all 1,992 OVP payees and 677 DepEd payees remains an open question in the proceedings.

Duterte has not publicly responded to the PSA's findings, at least not in the available record from Monday's session. The vice president also served as DepEd secretary during the period when that agency's confidential funds were disbursed, meaning both sets of suspect payee lists trace back to offices she led.

From House probe to Senate trial in two years

The "Mary Grace Piattos" name first became a public flashpoint in 2024, when the House committee on good government and public accountability opened its investigation into Duterte's confidential-fund spending. That inquiry eventually fed into the broader impeachment case now before the Senate.

Grande's appearance marked a shift from political argument to statistical evidence. The PSA is not a political body. It maintains the country's civil registry, the same system used to issue national IDs, verify citizenship, and process government benefits. When that agency says a name does not exist in its records, it carries a weight that partisan accusations do not.

Several questions remain unanswered. The Senate has not disclosed whether any of the listed payees were confirmed as real, identifiable individuals. The specific articles of impeachment tied to the confidential-fund issue have not been detailed in the available record. And no explanation has been offered for why so many names on official government receipts fail the most basic identity check the Philippine government can perform.

When the majority of people on your payroll don't appear to exist, the paperwork isn't a record of spending, it's a record of something else entirely.