New and unusual names have surfaced in acknowledgment receipts submitted to account for the Office of the Vice President’s (OVP) confidential funds, raising fresh questions during the ongoing Senate impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte. During Monday’s proceedings, the House prosecution panel presented financial documents containing suspect identities, including Antonio Pagong, Timon Andrew Pusa, Don Piang, Shane Ngitngit and Xuniso P. Belat.
The receipts reflected payments ranging from P100,000 to P250,000 for alleged operational expenses, such as the purchase of information and vehicle rentals.
House prosecution counsel Amando Virgil Ligutan confronted former OVP Special Disbursing Officer (SDO) Gina Acosta, who was testifying as a hostile witness. Ligutan pressed Acosta on whether she could verify that the individuals listed actually received the cash. When asked if she personally witnessed Col. Raymund Dante Lachica, the officer designated by Vice President Duterte to implement confidential field operations, hand the money to Antonio Pagong or Shane Ngitngit, Acosta repeatedly admitted that she did not. “Hindi ko siya nakita, Your Honor, kasi wala po ako doon sa ground. Siya po ang nag-implement, Your Honor,” Acosta testified.
Acosta confirmed that she had released four P125-million tranches, totaling P500 million, to Lachica between December 2022 and the third quarter of 2023.
However, she admitted that while she remained the bonded accountable officer for the funds, Lachica himself was not fidelity-bonded. Senator Francis Escudero, serving as the Impeachment Court Presiding Officer, put the matter directly to the former SDO, asking if she had no personal knowledge that the money was actually given to those people or spent on supplies, to which Acosta replied, “wala po.”
Acosta testified that she relied entirely on Lachica and the paperwork he provided to liquidate the expenditures. Under questioning, she admitted that her sole verification process consisted of asking Lachica himself whether the documents were authentic. The emergence of names like “Pagong” (turtle) and “Pusa” (cat) echoes earlier investigative findings involving Mary Grace Piattos, a moniker that became a central focus after lawmakers questioned whether the recipient existed, eventually prompting a P1-million reward offer for information on her whereabouts.
While Monday’s testimony did not establish whether Pagong, Pusa, Piang, Ngitngit, and Belat are real individuals or fabrications, it confirmed that the OVP officer accountable for liquidating P500 million in confidential funds had no personal knowledge of where the money went.
The testimony supports Article I of the impeachment complaint against Vice President Duterte, which alleges the systematic misuse and irregular liquidation of public funds.