EDITORIAL - Self-preservation

 The Philippines has always passed laws against money laundering with great reluctance. Republic Act 9160 or the Anti-Money Laundering Act was passed in 2001 mainly to get the country out of an international blacklist of money laundering havens. RA 9160 allowed the Anti-Money Laundering Council to look into suspicious accounts, but too many offenses were excluded from the coverage of the law. A judicial court ruling also required the AMLC to notify owners of suspicious bank deposits before the accounts can be opened, defeating the purpose of the law.

RA 9160 has been amended to remedy these weaknesses in the law. Several months ago, with the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force putting the Philippines in a “dark gray list,” Congress expanded the coverage of the Anti-Money Laundering Act to include terrorist financing and related crimes.

Still, lawmakers continued to exclude certain major offenses, notably tax evasion and bribery. The exclusion has inevitably raised suspicions that lawmakers are simply protecting themselves. Politicians are among the biggest recipients of bribes in this country. And obviously, like dirty money sourced from other criminal activities, no taxes are paid for bribes received.

Expanding the coverage of AMLA can significantly strengthen the fight, for example, against jueteng. Gambling lords obviously aren’t paying proper taxes and need to launder crime proceeds.

Other offenses protected from the anti-money laundering police are malversation of public funds, illegal logging and other environmental crimes, human trafficking, carjacking, cybercrimes and counterfeiting of currencies. These fall under the FATF’s minimum category of offenses. Yet for more than a decade, Philippine lawmakers have protected these offenses from the anti-money laundering police.

Perhaps each offense will require an amendment of AMLA. It’s not political persecution that the public should be concerned about, but lawmakers’ self-preservation.