Shutting down AMLC to have dire implications, official says

An Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) official on Friday maintained that the agency did its part in monitoring suspicious individuals bringing in huge amount of cash to the Philippines.

This was after Senator Richard Gordon called on President Rodrigo Duterte to abolish the AMLC for its alleged inefficiency to monitor and arrest potential money launderers who brought a total of $633 million to the country. 

Sought for comment, AMLC Secretariat Executive Director Mel Georgia Racela said abolishing the anti-dirty money body, though well within Congress' discretion, will have negative implications on the country.

"I hope he (Gordon) understands the implications of doing that," Racela told GMA News Online.

"One direct implication is that we go back to circa 2000 when the Philippines was included in the list of Non-Cooperative Countries and Territories and counter measures were about to be imposed on the country, its citizens and entities for NOT having an AMLC, among other things."

In an interview on Dobol B sa News TV, Gordon said he was not satisfied by the reasons cited by Racela during the Senate hearing on Wednesday.

Gordon said that Racela kept on citing Article 19 of the Civil Code which states that "every person must, in the exercise of his rights and in the performance of his duties, act with justice, give everyone his due, and observe honesty and good faith."

Racela, in his defense, said that the primary regulators for the entry of foreign currencies are the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the Bureau of Customs.

"We only come in after BOC submits the Foreign Currency Declaration forms to the AMLC for our analysis within 10 days following each month,” the AMLC executive said.

"I also explained during the Senate hearing that in money laundering there are two crimes, the predicate offense and the money laundering offense. One can never commit Money Laundering without the predicate offense," he added.

"In this case, we are looking for the predicate offense since March 2019."

Racela also reiterated that as early as March last year the AMLC already collaborated with their foreign counterparts abroad to investigate if the individuals suspiciously bringing in wads of cash to the Philippines have any derogatory records.

"We collaborated with our foreign counterparts to gather intelligence information since then and sounded the alarm to the BOC in August and the BSP in September both in 2019," he said.

"Needless to say, all these things would not have been acted upon by these agencies without the AMLC investigating in March and sounding the alarm in August," Racela added

"If that is failure to probe, then I do not know how the public should call it." —KBK, GMA News