The hearings on the alleged laundering of $81 million stolen from the Central Bank of Bangladesh has brought all of us into some sort of reality warp where fact seems more outlandish than fiction.
At the flick of a finger, a hoard of dollars in a purple suitcase is produced and delivered to the authorities. A few days after, millions of pesos in P500 bills materialize and are wheeled into the Bangko Sentral vault.
Most of us have never seen so much actual cash stashed like what we saw recently delivered to the authorities. The mere photograph of the stash is staggering, mind-boggling.
Then there are the stories of so-and-so millions, pesos and dollars, picked up from ordinary homes by ordinary cars. Millions of dollars were delivered to a Chinese gambler at a hotel using the bank manager’s car, with nary any form of formal documentation.
If there is a loophole in our Anti-Money Laundering Act, it must be large enough so that a car, heaving under the sheer weight of so much cash, can pass through it.
Many of us ordinary citizens now have a clear idea about how our banking system was used to channel millions of dollars in stolen money to the final beneficiaries of the loot. Holding up a bank and then hiding the stash in some lonely graveyard has truly fallen out of fashion. Today banks are robbed electronically and the loot distributed by wire.
Very few of us are clarified about the role played by remittance companies like Philrem in a heist as sophisticated as this one. When the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLAC) finally froze the accounts of Philrem, only a few thousand pesos were found in those accounts – paltry, considering the millions we are now told that were delivered in cash to strangers.
Most of us, a few senators included, are surely fascinated by this colorful character Kim Wong. He strikes us as forthright and totally audacious.
He told the Senate he would return the dollars he had with him. Shortly thereafter he did.
He told the Senate he would return the millions of pesos still in the casino vaults. Shortly thereafter, he delivered the cash hoard.
After the last hearing, he committed to turn over P450 million owed him by a Chinese high-roller. He just needed a little more time to assemble the cash. He is doing this, he says, because he believed the money involved was stolen.
Brimming with self-confidence, he is the complete antithesis of the colorless bureaucrats who are supposed to protect our financial system from money launderers. He always seems to be willing to talk, in contrast to the other resource persons from the banks, the casinos and the remittance company who tend to be guarded and vague in what they say.
If the bureaucrats stand aside, we should be able to return to the Bangladeshis some of their stolen money.
Still, after all the hearings, after all the fabulous show of cash, after all the fantastic testimonies of large amounts so casually moved from banks to shadowy beneficiaries, the main question standing out is: Through all these, has the AMLAC proven to be adept, responsive and timely in the discharge of its functions?
In aid of legislation, it should be the AMLAC that is the focus of scrutiny.
Fakes
Add this concern to the long list of smuggled goods flowing freely into our economy, including steel products, rice, sugar, garlic, onions, chicken parts, frozen pork and even blast-frozen fish. Counterfeit cigarettes have now been discovered flooding retail outlets in Mindanao.
According to tobacco industry sources, the fake cigarettes are openly displayed in thousands of stores in the provinces of Lanao del Sur, Lanao del Norte, Bukidnon, Iligan, Misamis Occidental, Zamboanga Peninsula and the Cotabato region. They are being sold for as low as P18 per pack – understandable because they pay no VAT nor excise taxes.
The fake cigarettes copy the packaging of locally manufactured products, freely infringing on their copyrights while blatantly poaching in their markets. Some are poor copies of brands popular in the other Southeast Asian countries.
The counterfeit goods are of very poor quality and victimize local consumers. They are reported to originate from pirate producers in China, Laos, Malaysia and Indonesia. Because they are not manufactured in regulated plants, the counterfeits are many times more hazardous for consumers.
It is not clear if there is any government task force, whether from the BIR or the DTI, designated to go after the counterfeit products. By law, these products are subject to outright confiscation and destruction by law enforcers. Peddlers face prosecution and jail terms for distributing counterfeit items.
Yet these counterfeit items are displayed flagrantly in stores and kept in large quantities in the warehouses of those who distribute them. Clearly, they are patronized by the poorest consumers, attracted by the low prices and oblivious to the safety concerns.
Cigarettes are among the so-called “sin products” on which heavy excise taxes are imposed by government. The penal taxes imposed by these products are, of course, inducements for counterfeiters and smugglers.
Even if they might not have the safety of our consumers in mind, government agencies should at least be concerned by the potential revenues lost because of the proliferation of fake products. VAT and excise taxes imposed on every pack of cigarettes overshadow the actual cost of the commodity.
The millions and millions of packs of fake cigarettes peddled widely in Mindanao makes a parody of whatever excuse government offered in imposing punitive tax rates on local manufacturers.