Bicam reconciles conflict provisions in AMLA bill

Sen. Grace Poe. Screen grab / Senate PRIB file photo

MANILA, Philippines — A bill seeking to fortify the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) is now a step closer to becoming a law.

Senator Grace Poe, the sponsor of the bill, reported to the chamber that the bicameral conference committee—composed of senators and House lawmakers—has already reconciled the “conflict provisions” in the measure.

“They [House] adopted a lot of the provisions of the Senate, we had a few issues that we have to resolve, we made a very good and just compromise,” Poe said during Tuesday’s Senate session.

“We will just have to ratify it,” she added.

The Senate version of the bill just secured its final approval in the upper chamber on Monday. The House, meanwhile, approved its version last December.

Under the Senate’s version of the bill, the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) functions were strengthened by “enhancing its investigative powers through express powers of deputization, the power to apply for search warrants, and power to obtain information on ultimate beneficial ownership.

The bill also deals with tax crimes covered by AMLA and their proposed threshold. It also proposed a section on information security and confidentiality and a system of incentives and rewards.

Poe earlier said the measure was crafted as a response to the key findings of the mutual evaluation report or MER, which evaluated the Philippines’ compliance with the 40 recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on Money Laundering.

JPV