MANILA, Philippines — Senator-judge Raffy Tulfo said he could understand why confidential informants might use aliases, but he questioned why several acknowledgment receipts tied to Vice President Sara Duterte’s confidential funds appeared to carry similar signatures and handwriting.
Tulfo raised the issue Monday during the Senate impeachment trial of Duterte, as the prosecution presented Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) Assistant National Statistician Marizza Grande as its 11th witness for Article I of the impeachment complaint.
The proceedings focused on unusual names appearing as supposed recipients of confidential funds from the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd).
The transactions being scrutinized involve a combined P612.5 million in confidential funds.
Tulfo: Aliases can be understandable—but signatures are another matter
Tulfo said the mere use of an alias would not necessarily convince him that something improper had happened.
He noted that informants working with law enforcement or intelligence agencies may use pseudonyms to protect their identities.
However, he drew the line at the apparent similarities in the signatures and handwriting on different acknowledgment receipts.
According to Tulfo, several supposed informants appeared to have matching signatures, while the handwriting used to fill in their names also appeared similar.
For the senator-judge, this raised the possibility that the documents may have been completed by a single person rather than by the individuals supposedly receiving the funds.
PSA testimony adds another layer to the controversy
Grande’s testimony brought additional scrutiny to the names appearing on the receipts.
Among those discussed were supposed payees whose names matched entries in PSA records, including individuals who appeared to have been extremely young at the time indicated on the acknowledgment receipts.
Tulfo asked whether investigators had attempted to determine whether the parents of those individuals could have signed the documents.
The prosecution said it did not pursue that line of inquiry because of the limited time available to track the supposed recipients.
Prosecution and defense clash over the “alias” explanation
The question of whether the names were actually aliases also exposed a disagreement between the prosecution and defense.
Prosecution counsel Mae Divinagracia said that if the names were indeed aliases, the defense should have raised that explanation earlier in the proceedings.
She explained that the prosecution treated the names as actual identities and sought validation through PSA records because the defense had not previously identified them as aliases.
Defense lawyer Justin Gular countered that the Commission on Audit findings did not identify the names of the payees or the supposed use of aliases as a specific concern.
He argued that the prosecution still carried the burden of proving the allegations in the impeachment complaint.
Alias debate has been building for weeks
The controversy is not new.
Earlier in the trial, the prosecution itself clarified that it had not claimed that the recipients were using aliases. The clarification came after questions from senator-judges about unusual names appearing in the confidential-fund documents.
The issue became even more heated when Senator-judge Robin Padilla argued that aliases have historically been used by prominent Filipinos, including national heroes.
Malacañang later pushed back against that comparison, saying the historical use of aliases by heroes should not be equated with names appearing in documents involving confidential funds.
Senator-judge Vicente “Tito” Sotto III also weighed in, saying a name could only properly be considered an alias if there is an actual person behind it. Otherwise, he said, it would be a fictitious or fake name. He cited Republic Act No. 6085, which regulates the use of aliases in the Philippines.
Tulfo wants key security officers questioned
For Tulfo, the identities behind the names are only part of the puzzle.
He said the impeachment court should hear from Col. Raymund Dante Lachica and Col. Dennis Nolasco, who were identified in testimony as the individuals involved in implementing the confidential activities for the OVP and DepEd, respectively.
Their testimony, Tulfo suggested, could help establish who supplied the names, who prepared the acknowledgment receipts and why several signatures and handwriting samples appeared similar.
The issue is particularly significant because the House prosecution had earlier removed Lachica and Nolasco from its witness list, saying the evidence and testimony already presented were sufficient to establish its allegations involving the P612.5-billion confidential-fund controversy.
The bigger question: Who actually received the money?
The dispute over aliases and signatures ultimately goes beyond unusual names.
At the heart of the controversy is whether the people listed on the acknowledgment receipts actually existed, actually received the money and personally signed the documents used to liquidate the confidential funds.
If aliases were legitimately used to protect informants, the identities of the real individuals behind those aliases could become crucial evidence.
But if multiple receipts bearing different names were actually prepared or signed by the same person, that could raise a different set of questions about the reliability of the documents used to account for public funds.
For now, Tulfo is not rejecting the possibility that aliases may have been necessary. His concern is what the similar signatures and handwriting could reveal about the people behind the receipts.
And as the impeachment trial continues, that question could become one of the most closely watched issues surrounding the alleged use and liquidation of Sara Duterte’s confidential funds.
WWC ONE MEDIA J.M.S
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