‘No need to amend anti-launder law’

There is yet no need to amend the Anti-Money Laundering Law despite the decision of a global watchdog on dirty money to keep the country in its blacklist of non-cooperative nations, a ranking lawmaker said yesterday.

Rep. Marcelino Libanan (NPC, Eastern Samar), chairman of the House justice committee, said it would be better for Congress to await the final decision of the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) which is meeting again in June.

He said efforts to amend the law would be useless if the FATF finally decides to accept the measures the country has taken to cooperate in the global campaign against money laundering.

Libanan was reacting to the plan of Manila Rep. Mario Crespo, better known as Mark Jimenez, to propose amendments to Republic Act 9160 to speed up the country’s removal from the FATF blacklist.

Crespo revealed his plan two days after the global task force ended a three-day meeting in Hong Kong during which it decided to keep the Philippines in its list of 19 "non-cooperative" nations despite explanation given to it by a high-level delegation that included Libanan and Sen. Francis Pangilinan.

The delegation was able to talk to members of the task force’s Asia-Pacific committee but was prevented from attending the plenary session.

The Samar solon and Crespo, who chairs the anti-money laundering subcommittee, were among the authors of RA 9160.

Libanan said before its June meeting, the task force will make a new evaluation of the Anti-Money Laundering Law and send a team here to assess how the country is carrying out measures to fight money laundering and illegal activities from which "dirty" money is earned.

In its first assessment report, the FATF found in RA 9160 "a number of potential flaws that brings into question the effectiveness of the law in practice." It asked the country to address the loopholes in future legislation.

According to the report, the list of covered offenses was "very narrow" and "is inconsistent with existing and emerging international standards."

The task force considered the P4 million ($80,000) benchmark that would prompt banks and other covered institutions to report suspicious transactions too high that it could render the reporting and monitoring system useless.

Among the changes that Crespo plans to propose is the lowering of the benchmark to P500,000 or about $10,000 (the threshold in the counterpart US law) and the expansion of the list of offenses to cover major crimes that generate big money, including smuggling and tax evasion.

He said tax evasion is a catch-all offense since every illegal act involves the avoidance or non-payment of taxes.

Smuggling, tax evasion, illegal labor recruitment, and other crimes were in the list of covered offenses in the original House version of the Anti-Money Laundering Law but were scrapped in the final version by the conference committee in favor of a short list.