Who is Mary Grace Piattos?
By Leonardo Micua
CONGRESSMEN in the Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability want to know if the person with such a name exits.
It is because the name Mary Grace Piattos is the signatory to most of the acknowledgment receipts (ARs) submitted to the Commission on Audit for liquidating the more than P600 million confidential funds of the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education in 2022 and 2023.
Suspecting that the name is a combination of a restaurant named Mary Grace and a potato chips brand, congressmen set aside P1 million from their funds as reward money to anyone who can identify and bring the person to the House of Representatives.
The controversial name appeared in most of the 4,500 ARs for P612 million in total funds released to a person from whom the OVP and DepEd supposedly purchased information.
Several officials of the OVP, COA and even the Land Bank of the Philippines from where the funds were drawn were questioned by members of the committee on November 20, but no one could say who Mary Grace Piattos is or the other recipients of the OVP and DepEd funds.
VP Sara was among those invited but she reportedly sent word she was not coming. A report said that she would rather face COA than the congressmen who have over extended their boundaries by badgering invited resource speakers to exact information that you and I know will not serve the purpose of crafting legislation.
The committee is now asking the Philippine Statistics Authority to authenticate if the person is on record, and the National Bureau of Investigation’s hand-writing experts to analyze signatures and ink in the ARs.
They even invited tellers and security guards of the LandBank branch where the funds were withdrawn.
Many are seeing the congressmen could just be setting the stage for VP Sara’s impeachment.
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The series of typhoons that breezed through Pangasinan, a few of which were destructive, were the main reasons why Dagupan Mayor Belen Fernandez has not yet ordered the installation of Christmas lights on Quintos Bridge and the traditional giant Christmas tree in front of the City Museum.
She told newsmen about this before Typhoon Pepito struck and before she left for Dagupan’s sister city, Milpitas in California, with local students, Schools Superintendent Rowena Bauzon, and some department heads to fulfill a longstanding sisterhood agreement.
On the query of IFM Dagupan Station Manager Mark Espinoza, Mayor Belen said her constituents would ostracize her for wasting their money if she installed the Christmas decors that could just be blown away by the winds and drenched by the rains.
She also announced that there will be no traditional nativity scene along the JdV Expressway. Instead, the 31 barangays will have their own Belens, to be judged and awarded prizes based on creativity, design, and materials.
The Christmas celebration in Dagupan is also expected to be subdued by the call of Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, upon instruction of PBBM, for all government agencies to refrain from an ostentatious celebration in solidarity with those who their lost loved ones, livelihood and homes to the typhoons.
Dagupan itself is still under a state of calamity due to the impact of Typhoon Kristine.
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The opposition in Dagupan City succeeded in stopping the proposed Mother and Child Hospital from being built on the property donated to the DOH by Mayor Belen’s brother.
But they can’t stop the Edades & Bernal Cultural Center and Museum, a project of Rep. Toff de Venecia, from rising on a property of the Fernandez family just adjacent to that donated land.
The project broke ground last week in a ceremony spearheaded by Congressman Toff; Mayor Belen; Zhanne Dantis, representing Senator Pia Cayetano who, we heard, donated P50 million to the project; National Commission of Culture and the Arts Deputy Executive Director Marichu Tellano; relatives of national artists Bernal and Edades; and other city officials.
The center is envisioned to be another iconic landmark in Dagupan City that will attract tourists as well as investors.
And this is what the political opposition is really trying to prevent. They want to make sure that Fernandez will not benefit from the economic activities that will come with the development of the area along JdV Expressway.
Their distorted view is definitely a stumbling bloc to progress. They want Dagupan to instead retrogress as long as Belen Fernandez is at the helm.
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