Mary Grace Piattos may remain a mystery forever in the Sara Duterte impeachment trial. With the withdrawal of Article I, the Senate may never determine who received the money acknowledged under that name or where it went.
But the bigger question is why the search for answers should stop here, when the confidential funds in question were allocated in 2022, under the Marcos-Duterte political alliance, while Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte were still close allies.
The controversy is not just about an unexplained name on a receipt. It is about millions of pesos in public funds, the officials who handled them, and the government that allocated them.
Duterte must answer for the use of funds entrusted to her offices. Marcos Jr., for his part, cannot simply distance himself from the allocation made under his administration. His specific responsibility for the approval and oversight of those funds deserves scrutiny, even as any personal liability must be established by evidence.
Mary Grace Piattos may be a mystery, but the responsibility for the money must not be.
This is the gravely troubling consequence of Day 39 of the impeachment trial. After 38 days of presenting witnesses and documentary evidence on four articles of impeachment, the House prosecution panel withdrew three charges and decided to concentrate on Article II, involving Duterte’s alleged unexplained wealth, questionable Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN), and alleged failure to divest from business interests.
Lead prosecutor Representative Gerville Luistro defended the move, saying the remaining charge was strong enough to stand on its own and that concentrating on it would shorten the proceedings. “All-in po tayo dito,” she declared.
There may be a tactical justification for narrowing the case. But an impeachment trial is not merely a race toward conviction. The question is whether a faster verdict is worth leaving other serious allegations unresolved.
By withdrawing Articles I, III, and IV, the prosecution abandoned the opportunity for the Senate to rule on allegations involving confidential-fund misuse, bribery and corruption, and grave threats against Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and House Speaker Martin Romualdez. Only Article II will proceed.
While the withdrawal neither establishes guilt nor amounts to an acquittal, it does, however, leave three (3) sets of allegations without a determination on their merits in this impeachment proceeding.
The public is entitled to ask why charges originally considered serious enough to include in the articles of impeachment are now being abandoned and what other avenues remain for investigating them.
This concern is straightforward: the choice of which charges to pursue should not determine which allegations of abuse of public power are ultimately examined.
Article I brought the confidential and intelligence funds handled by the OVP and the DepEd during Duterte’s tenure into public scrutiny. Audit records, bank transactions, liquidation reports, and testimony from government auditors and other officials raised questions about acknowledgment receipts, unusual cash withdrawals, and the documentation used to account for public money.
Mary Grace Piattos became the most memorable symbol of those questions. With Article I withdrawn, the Senate – and, the public in general — will no longer determine whether the evidence presented under that charge supports a finding of fraudulent liquidation or other wrongdoings.
The investigation must therefore continue through the Commission on Audit, the Office of the Ombudsman, and other competent authorities, as appropriate to their respective mandates. The withdrawal of an impeachment charge is not a clearance of the transactions under scrutiny.
Confidentiality may be necessary for legitimate intelligence operations, but it cannot excuse questionable liquidation or inadequate documentation. These funds come from taxpayers, and the secrecy surrounding them makes credible independent oversight indispensable.
Without effective controls, as it is now, billions in confidential and intelligence funds are becoming a pork barrel for powerful officials, beyond meaningful public scrutiny.
Marcos Jr. cannot distance himself from the allocation.
The 2022 confidential funds allocation must also be examined in the context of the political alliance between Marcos and Duterte. They ran together, governed together, and occupied the highest offices of the land when the disputed funds were allocated. Their subsequent falling-out does not erase the circumstances in which those decisions were made.
Marcos Jr. cannot demand accountability from Duterte while treating his own administration’s role in allocating the funds as irrelevant. More especially so now that billions of confidential and intelligence funds are still allocated to the Office of the President.
As it is now, there is a strong perception that another intended purpose of the withdrawal is to shield the Marcos, Jr. administration and his allies from scrutiny.
Duterte, meanwhile, cannot dismiss scrutiny of her handling of the funds as merely political persecution. Her responsibility must be assessed on the evidence, not on whether she remains an ally or has become an enemy of the President.
The public should not have to choose between the Marcos and Duterte camps. The issue is whether public funds were properly allocated, spent, and accounted for. Their political feud must not become a convenient substitute for examining the decisions made while they were still allies.
Meanwhile, the withdrawal of Article IV also raises a separate concern. The charge involved alleged grave threats against Marcos Jr., the First Lady, and the House Speaker. Its withdrawal means the Senate will not reach a final determination on those allegations in this proceeding.
Whatever the evidence might ultimately establish, allegations of this gravity deserve a fair examination.
The same applies to Article III, concerning alleged bribery and corruption. Their withdrawal should not automatically end consideration of whether the allegations warrant further investigation by the appropriate authorities.
For now, the practical effect of dropping the three (3) charges is a narrower inquiry: Duterte’s personal finances remain under scrutiny, while the allegations involving confidential funds, corruption, and grave threats will no longer be adjudicated in the impeachment trial.
The public must guard against a system in which allegations are pursued or abandoned according to political convenience rather than the demands of justice.
Mary Grace Piattos Must Not Be the End of the Story!
The prosecution has chosen to stake its case on Article II. That charge must be judged on the evidence and the applicable law.
But the withdrawal of the other articles should not close the book on the allegations they raised.
The Ombudsman, the Commission on Audit, and other competent authorities must pursue matters within their mandates. The public deserves answers about the disputed transactions, the officials who handled them, and the safeguards—or failures of oversight—that shaped their use.
Mary Grace Piattos may remain an enduring mystery in the impeachment trial. But the inquiry must reach beyond an unexplained name on a receipt to the money, the transactions, and the officials responsible for them.
Sara Duterte must answer for the funds entrusted to her offices. Marcos Jr. must answer legitimate questions about the allocation made under his administration, the safeguards exercised over it and the continued perpetration of this graft-ridden and anomalous confidential and intelligence funds.
Neither their former alliance nor their present feud should determine how far scrutiny and accountability go.
Mary Grace Piattos may disappear into the shadows of the impeachment trial, but Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte must not be allowed to disappear behind her. The withdrawal of an impeachment charge cannot become an escape route for those whose actions or omissions may have contributed to the misuse of public funds.
Public office is a public trust. The people’s money is not a political war chest, and the search for accountability must not end where political convenience begins.
Marcos Jr. Must Answer for the Funds His Government Allocated!
The confidential-fund controversy cannot be confined to Sara Duterte alone. The funds were allocated in 2022, when Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Duterte were still close political allies, sharing a presidential ticket and governing under the same political alliance.
Marcos Jr. was at the helm of the administration under which the allocation was made. That fact raises questions his subsequent political falling-out with Duterte cannot erase.
While legal liability must rest on evidence of his own acts or omissions and the applicable law, the issue now is whether his government exercised the necessary scrutiny before releasing the funds, imposed adequate safeguards over their use, and responded appropriately when serious questions arose about their liquidation.
Who approved the allocation? What controls were required? What oversight did the Executive exercise? These are legitimate questions about the administration’s stewardship of public money, not partisan attacks against the President.
Marcos Jr. cannot claim the authority to preside over the allocation of public funds while treating accountability for their proper use as someone else’s problem. If his government authorized the allocation, the public is entitled to know what safeguards accompanied it and whether those responsible for oversight discharged their duties.
Marcos Jr. cannot demand accountability from Duterte while treating his own administration’s role in allocating the funds as irrelevant. More especially so now that billions of these graft-ridden confidential and intelligence funds are still allocated like a pork-barrel to the Office of the President.
There is an added political dimension. Marcos and Duterte were once allies, bound together by a common electoral campaign and a shared exercise of executive power.
Their alliance eventually collapsed, but that rupture cannot rewrite the history of their government.
Again, Marcos cannot now use the political conflict to distance himself from questions arising from decisions made while they were partners in power.
As it is now, there is a strong perception that another intended purpose of the withdrawal is to shield the Marcos, Jr. administration and his allies from further scrutiny. The quest for full accountability should be pursued to ensure that neither Marcos, Jr.’s office nor his former alliance with Duterte places his administration beyond scrutiny.
Nor should the investigation stop with either of them. Duterte must account for the funds entrusted to her offices; officials who disbursed, documented, audited, or supervised the transactions must answer for their respective responsibilities.
The people’s money does not become the exclusive responsibility of the official who receives it, nor does the President’s responsibility end with signing off on its allocation.
Public accountability must cover the entire chain of decisions—from authorization and release to expenditure, liquidation, and audit.
Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte may have gone from political allies to bitter adversaries, but their falling-out does not erase the public’s right to examine the decisions they made while governing together. (davaotoday.com)
