AMLC denies giving Aguirre a hard time; there are rules

Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/ MARIANNE BERMUDEZ

THE ANTI-MONEY Laundering Council (AMLC) on Monday denied it was giving Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II a hard time in his bid to build a case against Sen. Leila de Lima in the alleged drug protection racket in the New Bilibid Prison (NBP).

AMLC Secretariat deputy director Vencent Salido told senators in a Senate hearing on amendments to the Anti-Money Laundering Act that there were certain procedures to follow in acting on the request of Aguirre.

Aguirre last week said he had asked the AMLC to let the Department of Justice (DOJ) take a peek into certain bank records that would show the financial transactions between convicted drug lords and their coddlers supposedly led by De Lima.

De Lima has denied the allegations.

Aguirre said he expected the AMLC to submit the bank records he requested to give government lawyers time to sift through them in preparation for the Sept. 20 hearing of the House of Representatives on the proliferation of drugs at the NBP during then Justice Secretary De Lima’s watch.

Need a memo

But he said the AMLC told him it was not easy to get the records because the request was not covered by the memorandum of agreement between the DOJ and AMLC.

Interviewed by the Inquirer after the Senate hearing, Salido said he had explained to Aguirre the procedures that would enable the AMLC to ask the Court of Appeals (CA) to allow a bank inquiry.

He said the DOJ should submit either a criminal complaint or an investigation report stating the unlawful activity and the proceeds from it.

“So that’s how we go to the CA to ask the court, ‘please open the bank accounts because this money came from an unlawful activity,’” Salido said.

Just following law

He denied the AMLC was giving Aguirre a hard time, saying “we have to follow the law.”

But Salido said the AMLC could skip going to the CA if the unlawful activity involved illegal drugs. A drug case is one of three cases (the other two being kidnap-for-ransom and terrorist financing cases) exempted from going to the CA because these need immediate attention so the proceeds from these activities could not be moved.

In this case, he said the AMLC could issue a resolution “authorizing the conduct of a bank inquiry.” With Inquirer Research Sources: Inquirer Archives, AMLC website, gov.ph