Government to tighten rules vs dirty money, terror funding

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines is laying down a national policy strategy to ensure compliance with international standards and effectively combat money laundering and terrorist financing, a top official of the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) said.

Mel Georgie Racela, executive director of the AMLC Secretariat, said in a letter there is a need for the Philippines to adopt a National Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Policy Strategy to comply with the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

Malacañang has designated the AMLC as the lead agency in the mutual evaluation (ME) which will be conducted by the Asia Pacific Group of Money Laundering (APG) to review the compliance of the Philippines in combating money laundering and terrorist financing.

Racela said the AMLC Secretariat has issued the operational guidelines in the conduct of the mutual evaluation. The process requires high level support and active participation of various government agencies, including supervisory authorities, law enforcement agencies, other government agencies, and private stakeholders.

“In this regard, the AMLC and member-agencies of the national mutual evaluation working group shall actively participate in the drafting of a National AML/CFT Policy Strategy for the purpose of strengthening mechanisms to ensure compliance with international standards and effectively combat money laundering and terrorist financing,” he said.

Various government agencies would identify and provide inputs and achievable objectives during the drafting of the national strategy and at the same time participate in workshops, discussion forums and consultations.

Likewise, agencies would provide the necessary support and endorse the national strategy to ensure its adoption and effective implementation, as well as integrate objectives into the action plans and strategic objectives.

The progress of implementation of the national policy strategy would be reviewed and monitored regularly.

Pool of experts from APG member–jurisdictions is set to evaluate the country’s compliance in combating money laundering and terrorist financing through a two-year evaluation set to start this year. The country underwent mutual evaluations in 2003 and 2008.

The Philippines got relatively poor rating due to major shortcomings in the country’s AML/CFT legal framework during the second mutual evaluation last 2008 and was placed in the FATF’s “grey list” and considered as a “high risk” jurisdiction subject to countermeasures.

In 2013, the Philippines was removed from the “grey list” with the passage of Republic Act. 10365, introducing significant reforms in the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) of 2001.