No PSA record of 'Mary Grace Piattos'

There are no "records of birth certificate, marriage and death" under the name of Mary Grace Piattos, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported yesterday to the House committee on good government and public accountability currently investigating the alleged misuse of confidential funds by the Office of the Vice President (OVP).

- By JOSE RODEL CLAPANO

In a two-page document dated Nov. 25 and submitted to committee chairman and Manila 3rd District Rep. Joel Chua, national statistician and civil registrar general Dennis Mapa said that verification made from the PSA’s civil registry system database showed that Mary Grace Piattos has “negative records of birth certificate, marriage and death.”

The document was made available to the media only yesterday by the Chua’s committee.

“However, if additional information such as the name of parents of the subject, date and place of vital event can be provided, we can search further and be able to ascertain whether the civil registry document is available in the database,” Mapa said.

Piattos was one of the recipients of the OVP’s P500-million confidential funds, including the P112.5-million confidential funds in the Department of Education (DepED) while the Vice President was still its secretary.

During the committee hearing early this month, Antipolo 2nd District Rep. Romeo Acop asked the Commission on Audit (COA) about a restaurant named “Mary Grace” and a potato chip called “Piattos,” since acknowledgment receipts (AR) bore the same name, with Piattos as the surname.