Senators reportedly want to “dig deeper” into the money laundering scandal involving several casinos and a bank. Congressmen, apparently hit by publicity envy, have announced plans to conduct their own probe. The congressional inquiries, ostensibly in aid of legislation, could be stretched all the way to election day.
With just three months left before incumbent officials finish their terms, can any piece of legislation even be proposed in connection with this probe? One measure needed to prevent a repeat of the scandal has been sought by authorities since the Anti-Money Laundering Act was passed in 2001: an easing of bank secrecy laws, which are among the toughest in the world. But every Congress has brushed aside the proposal. Will the ongoing probe make a difference?
Last Friday, as senators worked overtime to grill the personalities involved in the laundering scandal, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the Bureau of Internal Revenue again pushed for the easing of bank secrecy laws. BIR officials said the measure is needed against tax evasion – a crime, incidentally, that remains exempted from the coverage of the Anti-Money Laundering Act. Are lawmakers willing to add tax evasion, finally, to the predicate crimes covered by AMLA?
The senators want to find out how $81 million hackers stole from the Bangladesh central bank deposited in the US Federal Reserve found its way to several casinos and a bank in the Philippines and then vanished. The perpetrators clearly were aware that Philippine casinos are exempted from money laundering laws, and exploited this weakness.
Senators have admitted that they kept casinos out of AMLA coverage to encourage more investments in the gaming industry. Are senators willing, finally, to include casinos among the crimes covered by AMLA?
With the time constraints, it’s unlikely that Congress can hammer out any of these proposals for enactment by President Aquino before he bows out in June. The congressional probe at least has highlighted the fact that this national embarrassment could have been prevented – if the measures sought by the anti-money laundering police had been approved a long time ago.