We, the launderers

(Somewhere in Europe) – At the airport, the man at the foreign exchange counter was doing his usual routine. He would ask every customer what currency he or she needed and how much. It was simple, really – he calculated the rate, counted the bills and handed the money to each buyer or seller.

“Next please,” he would say, one after the other, almost like clockwork. He was in his late 30s or early 40s and seemed to know the drill perfectly well. The line was long but it moved quickly because, as I said, the man moved fast and easy and money literally slipped through his hands smoothly. The more bills to exchange, the more commissions too for this forex counter.

And then came the turn of a fellow Filipino traveler.

She asked to change some dollars into the local currency. It was her first time in Europe and she was beaming with excitement. It was almost palpable as she grinned from ear to ear; not even the 16-hour or so flight from the Philippines would slow her down. Getting ready for her first European adventure, she wanted to get some local currency first before anything else.

After an exchange of pleasantries, the man at the counter asked her where she was from.

“Manila.”

“How much do you need?”

“$700,” she said.

The man said he could only exchange $495. She didn’t ask why. Maybe, it was a simple administrative matter.

He readied the local currency; she gave him five pieces of crisp $100. He handed her $5 as change.

He then went back to his computer. And that’s when the bad news came crashing down.

Unfortunately, he said apologetically, he could not take her bills because, in so many words, he said something like the Philippines is on a list of countries being monitored for money laundering.

She could try, said the man, in another forex outlet in the city.

That’s that. She was stunned but saw no reason to appeal, for what could she do, really?

The man called the next customers in line but guess what – we’re all Filipinos.

We didn’t bother trying our luck anymore. It was too embarrassing.

In fact, more than an inconvenience, it was for me a very embarrassing incident for us Filipinos.

Shrugging off this sort of mishap, our group of Filipino travelers walked out of the airport still smiling. It was, after all, a cashless world, anyway. Debit cards and credit cards would likely work and help us survive the trip.

The first whiff of air outside the airport was biting cold; the thermometer must have read six degrees Celsius but nothing could douse our spirits.

Before boarding our van, we took a group photo and instead of saying cheese, we jested, “Launderers!” As usual, Filipinos turn to humor when the going gets tough.

I smiled, too, and laughed a lot in disbelief. But deep inside, I was genuinely embarrassed. It was not the first time.

There were other times I really felt embarrassed as a citizen of my country. In recent years, it was when, one, Rody Duterte joked about raping an Australian missionary; second when he cursed the Pope and third when Marcos Jr. became president and a foreigner asked me why Filipinos voted for a member of the same family we already booted out of office decades ago in a bloodless revolution.

We showed the world how it was done, only to show the world again, decades later, how to undo it, said the foreigner I met at a writer’s workshop, also in a European country, last year. I had no answers. Instead, I smiled and let out a self deprecating laugh.

Gray list

But being perceived as launderers is  really no laughing matter. Our group of Filipino travelers were relatively from a position of privilege but how about the overseas Filipino workers?

The man at the forex counter, of course, was not to be blamed. He was simply doing his job.

The Philippines is part of a gray list of the global dirty money watchdog, the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF). We were re-included in the gray list in June 2021 because we failed to address deficiencies in anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism.

The remaining deficiencies include risk-based supervision of designated non-financial business and professions (DNFBPs); mitigating risks associated with casino junkets; enhancing law enforcement agencies’ access to beneficial ownership information and taking steps to ensure such information is accurate and up-to-date; an increase in money laundering investigations and prosecutions in line with risk and demonstrating an increase in the identification, investigation and prosecution of terrorist financing cases.

Part of the reasons behind the deficiencies is the fact that we have yet to amend our Bank Secrecy Law. Amendments would give regulators more power to look into accounts of depositors of closed banks or when there is fraud committed by BSP-supervised institutions.

President Marcos must address this embarrassing tag.

Being on the list also means higher costs of potential borrowings, lack of trade opportunities and potentially a downgrade in credit ratings.

But, more importantly, we don’t want to be known as launderers. We can laugh and call ourselves launderers when a forex counter decides not to change our dollars but in reality, we cower in shame to be identified as such. We must fix this for the sake of every Filipino and the generations to come.

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Email: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @eyesgonzales. Columnarchives at EyesWideOpen (Iris Gonzales) on Facebook.