Proposed law will open depositors to robbers

It’s bad enough that the government cannot protect citizens from robbers and extortionists. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas will worsen things by laying bare private deposits and assets. Kidnappers for ransom and scammers would have a field day.

Such fear stems from Congress bills to empower the BSP to pry into deposits without court permission. If the BSP is to have its way, it would also snoop on personal and corporate investments even if unrelated to banking.

Bankers and depositors are wary. For, the provisos are inserted in four bills in the Senate and six in the House of Reps innocuously to triple the BSP’s capital. If enacted, the bills would defeat their aim of stabilizing the monetary system. Instead they would lead to capital flight – on the eve of the ASEAN economic integration in 2015.

The provisos override the Bank Secrecy Law on which the financial system rests. Kabataan Party-list Rep. Terry Ridon foresees “unlawful searches and seizures” of bank accounts. Such acts would violate citizens’ rights to be secure in their persons, to privacy, and against deprivation of property without due process. To prevent official abuse, bank secrecy requires prior court consent before the government looks into suspected criminal accounts.

Bankers see worse. Chamber of Thrift Banks executive director Suzanne Felix says depositors would be exposed to kidnapping and other crimes. The Congress bills would leave to the BSP the drafting of guidelines on who may look into deposits and how. Well-placed criminal syndicates could thus use sensitive information to rob and scam depositors. Citizens’ only option would be to move their deposits out of the country.

The bills would increase the BSP’s capital from P50 billion to P200 billion. Government would infuse P50 billion a year for three consecutive years, during which the BSP would be exempt from taxes. The BSP also would be authorized to issue bonds and set reserve buffers any time it deems fit. The 20-year-old BSP Charter limits its exercise of such powers only under extraordinary situations.

The amendments to the BSP Charter supposedly would enable it to monitor the volume of credit. The government needs to avert over-lending by banks to high-flying individuals and companies, lest the financial sector collapses from repayment default.

But the bills go overboard. They give regulators blanket authority over any information they want, even beyond their purview. The BSP will have “authority to require from any person or entity … any data for the proper discharge of its functions and responsibilities.”

The BSP also may compel disclosure of transactions between a bank and its parent or affiliate companies. But as worded, the bills would let the BSP pry into all types of investments in stocks and assets that have nothing to do with bank loans. This would prejudice free enterprise and fair competition.

Congress’ own Policy and Budget Research Department is worried about the amendments being prone to abuse. It recommends strong balance between the power of the state and individual rights -- the perpetual struggle with legislation.

But the risk to life, limb and property is more basic. Unscrupulous bankers and officials are known to share sensitive info on big depositors with kidnappers, blackmailers, and extortionate taxmen. In countless cases, ordinary citizens too have been robbed upon withdrawing money from usual depositories.

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Congress is notorious for legislating without thinking. In the past year it passed laws only for publicity. One was the Kasambahay Law, supposedly to uplift housemaids. But in requiring employers to pay their helpers’ social security contributions retroactive 1993, it only made them fire the latter. The Centenarian Act would have gifted P100,000 cash to a citizen who turns 100. But in imposing a 75-percent discount on all purchases by centenarians without any tax rebate for the sellers, the law doomed itself to presidential veto. A Comprehensive Firearms and Ammunition Regulation Act purportedly would confiscate once and for all unlicensed guns starting the New Year. But experts predict failure this early. For the law, while granting yet another amnesty for loose firearms also would make registering more tiresome. So new gun buyers would shun licensing, knowing that the police is unable anyway to seize illegal guns, estimated at 400,000 and growing.

Congress passed the law without demanding statistics from the National Police. The latter could not have given scientific data anyway. There are no figures on how many violent crimes involve guns, much more if the unabated armed robberies and assassinations involve licensed or illegal ones. Inept, the PNP brass has not estimated how many thousand bullets are fired into the air from how many guns during the New Year’s Eve revelry – to hit 40 persons in 2013 and 32 this 2014. It has not even identified where indiscriminate gun firing is usual. Or, if the taping of PNP official firearms truly prevents cops from drunken firing. Four such cops and five firemen were arrested last January 1st. They among many were the only ones caught in the act; expect them to be acquitted after a few months of feigned disciplining.

Most congressmen know nothing about gun ownership for self-defense. They do it only for power trip. One of them tried to commit suicide in his congressional office, but was so dumb that he missed his vital organs.

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