Miriam wants casinos covered by AMLA

Presidential candidate Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago on Wednesday vowed to push for the passage of a bill expanding the coverage of the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) to include casinos.

“If the casino sector remains outside of the coverage of AMLA, the Philippines risks becoming the world’s money laundering capital,” Santiago said in a statement.

Santiago’s statement came amid recent anomaly involving $81-million worth of suspected laundered money hacked from the Bank of Bangladesh and discovered to have been stored in the Philippines’ Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC).

Hackers reportedly laundered the money from the Bangladesh central bank's deposits in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and transferred the money to several bank accounts of high-roller casino players with RCBC, and were reportedly used to either “buy chips” or “pay for casino losses.”

Santiago said this recent incident highlights the need to amend AMLA in order to mandate casinos to report questionable deals to the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC).

Santiago said the AMLA amendment is necessary for the Philippines to keep out of the blacklist of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global body against money laundering and terrorist financing.

Santiago warned that if blacklisted by the FATF, the country would “suffer higher financial transaction costs and stringent cross-border measures for money transactions”.

At present, the Philippines remains in the FATF “grey list.”

Santiago said the Congress in 2012 sought the coverage of casinos under AMLA but the proposed measure was opposed by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp., saying that the provision might drive away investors.

Santiago said that if elected as president, she will match the lobby from the casino sector with her political will.

“The Filipinos should elect a president who will not bow to the whims of big business, to the detriment of public interest,” Santiago said. — APG, GMA News