00:00After earlier discovery of fictitious names of supposed recipients of the confidential funds of the Office of the Vice President,
00:09the House Prosecution Panel revealed more such type of names in today's lower house hearing on the matter.
00:17Mela Lismoras from PTV Manila has the details.
00:22Lawmakers believe that the impeachment case against Vice President Sara Duterte has become stronger
00:28due to the pieces of evidence that the lower house has right now.
00:31This is largely due to the latest revelations made by House Deputy Majority Leader Paulo Ortega regarding the OVP's confidential funds.
00:40According to Ortega, there is a new set of fictitious names in the alleged budulgang
00:45or people who were allegedly listed as beneficiaries of VP Sara's confidential funds.
00:51Dubbed a STEAM grocery, this include Beverly Claire Pampano, Mico Harina, Pati Ting, Ralph Josh Bacon, and Sala Kasim.
00:59Ortega said like many others flagged by the lower house, Pampano, Harina, Pati Ting, Bacon, and Kasim
01:05do not match with any official birth, marriage, or death records of the Philippine Statistics Authority.
01:11So he can't help but ask, where did the public funds go?
01:15For the House Prosecution Panel, this would be truly helpful for them in the impeachment trial.
01:20We will have a stronger support for Article 2.
01:24If you recall, Article 2 is about confidential funds and our allegations under Article 2 is that there were fictitious names,
01:34a lot of fictitious names, names which have no basis.
01:39Vice President Duterte previously insisted that there were no anomalies in the use of confidential funds.
01:45Her supporters even argued that since they are called confidential funds, the recipients and their usage should also remain confidential or secret.
01:53But the prosecution has a response to that.
01:56The use of fictitious names for confidential funds is not automatically legal as in fact there are guidelines that the officials have to follow.
02:06For example, we were told that usually the real name of those hiding under fictitious names are usually given in a sealed envelope.
02:16For Malacanang, they have this to say on the issue.
02:20Maybe it's not just the palace that is wondering.
02:28Maybe the people themselves are wondering why the receipts given by the OVP are like this.
02:37And these are the evidences that we will remember and we will pass on to the House of Representatives and to the Senate if they will use them in the impeachment trial.
