AMLC report should be confidential, says law professor

A report from the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) is supposed to be confidential and should not be made public until a case is filed in court, according to a commercial law professor.

“The AMLC report is confidential unless the case is already filed in court and [it] is used as the basis for the complaint … If there is no case yet, the confidentiality applies,” University of Santo Tomas Faculty of Civil Law dean Nilo Divina said.

An AMLC report claiming Vice President Jejomar Binay illegally amassed “billions” of pesos when he was Makati City mayor said he used money from the city’s infrastructure projects, through his supposed dummies, to fund his vice presidential campaign in 2010.

The AMLC was said to have launched a probe upon orders from the Office of the Ombudsman in 2004.

Divina, a corporate law expert and author of the “Handbook on Commercial Law,” said the AMLC report could only be released or considered a public document once it was made part of the criminal complaint that would be filed against the accused.

“Whoever leaked out the report is obviously against the Vice President,” said Divina, adding, “it may not necessarily be the AMLC as an institution.”

The camp of Binay had dismissed the latest AMLC report as part of “orchestrated efforts” to discredit his presidential bid in May.

The Office of the Ombudsman has earlier acknowledged that Binay, who served as Makati mayor for two decades, is immune from suit while he is vice president. RC