Palace baffled over OVP fund list with names resembling ‘groceries’

Vice President Sara Duterte — GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

MANILA, Philippines — The Palace on Monday said it was baffled by the names resembling groceries on the list of recipients of the Office of the Vice President’s (OVP) confidential funds.

The Palace also said it would leave such evidence to Congress on whether it would be used on Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial.

“It’s probably not just the Palace that is a bit baffled; maybe all the people themselves are wondering why the receipts issued by the OVP are like this,” Presidential Communications Office Undersecretary Claire Castro said in Filipino at the media briefing.

READ: Alleged VP fund recipients list gets stranger, says congressman

“We will just set aside this evidence and leave it to the House of Representatives and the Senate to decide whether it will be used in the impeachment trial,” she added.

Last Sunday, House Deputy Majority Leader Paolo Ortega V sounded off the alarm on the newly discovered names dubbed “Team Grocery:”

• Beverly Claire Pampano, whose surname resembles a popular fish
• Mico Harina, whose surname translates to flour
• Sala Casim, whose surname is a homophone of “kasim,” a pork shoulder cut widely used in Filipino dishes like adobo and menudo
• Patty Ting, whose first name means a small flat cake of minced meat.
• Ralph Josh Bacon, whose last name resembles a cured and smoked pork

READ: VP Sara Duterte on confidential fund use: ‘I will not explain’

The questionable names, said Ortega, had no official birth, marriage, or death records from the Philippine Statistics Authority, further raising accusations that large sums of public money were allegedly funneled to fictitious individuals under the leadership of Duterte.