MANILA, Philippines—A number of senators are questioning the urgency in the approval of several amendments to the Anti-Money Laundering Act being demanded by the international Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
Senator Joker Arroyo pointed out that FATF, which has threatened sanctions against the Philippines if the amendments are not in effect by May, consists of only 36 member-countries, none of which is in the Middle East where most overseas Filipinos work.
The FATF’s warning that OFWs would have difficulty remitting money back home if the anti-laundering amendments are not signed into law by May would have no effect on Filipino expatriates in the Middle East, he said.
The Financial Action Task Force is a Paris-based inter-governmental policy-making body created by developed countries, which aims to combat money laundering and financing of international terrorists.
Established in 1989 by the G-7 Summit, the FATF was tasked to examine money laundering techniques and trends, and set out measures to combat money laundering.
Senate Majority leader Vicente Sotto III asked AMLA amendment sponsor Sen. Teofisto Guingona III whether innocent parties who transact with suspected launderers would risk having their bank accounts scrutinized.
Sotto said the amendments subject to debate on the Senate floor are not clear on whether depositors who engage in harmless transactions such as money transfers to pay loans from suspected launderers would themselves be investigated.
Sotto noted that a provision referring to the investigation of a “related web of accounts” allows the Anti-Money Laundering Council (Amlac) to look into other accounts if they are involved in transactions with a suspected launderer.
“All accounts with transactions with a suspected launderer can be looked into or even frozen. The Amlac is authorized to do anything,” Sotto during floor debates Tuesday.
He also noted that under the definition given in the proposed amendments, “even money deposited as stock dividend from a known corporation could make the corporation subject to investigation simply because it deposited cash in the account of a suspected launderer.”
Because of this, Sotto urged sponsors to clarify the predicate crimes that need to be established before the Amlac can scrutinize bank accounts.
“The amendments have to be clear on what can be considered as related web of accounts under its definition of money laundering. The deposits of a launderer must be clearly connected to a predicate crime. If that is not clarified, anyone can be investigated as long as they had a transaction that involved a suspected launderer’s account no matter how innocent the transaction was,” he said.