Manila, Sept. 7 -- Presiding officer Francis "Chiz" Escudero on Monday pointed to limitations in using Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) records to establish the identities of supposed confidential fund recipients, noting that the civil registry is not yet universal and that even an exact name match may not conclusively identify the actual payee.

During Vice President Sara Duterte's impeachment trial, Escudero questioned Assistant National Statistician Marizza Grande on the scope and reliability of the Civil Registry System (CRS) after the prosecution presented PSA verification results on names appearing in acknowledgment receipts.

"So that means to say, as you confirmed earlier, hindi talaga universal yung CRS (the CRS is not real...