AMLC jeered for ‘crude’ tracking of POGO funds

SENATORS have called out the Anti-money Laundering Council (AMLC) for its apparent tepid efforts to monitor Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (Pogos) with headquarters in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) and other known tax havens.

At the recent hearing on the 2021 budget of the financial watchdog, Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon described as “very amateur” the council’s strategy to ferret out vital information on learning that the AMLC had simply written BVI authorities to confirm whether certain POGOS were headquartered there.

Drilon, a former Justice secretary, scoffed at this topic and wondered aloud how the AMLC expected a response from BVI, when the latter’s economy relies on hosting of foreign entities seeking tax havens.

Drilon wanted to know at the Senate plenary deliberations on the proposed 2021 budget how seriously the AMLC was monitoring the Pogos, some of which the Department of Finance has said still owed the Philippine government billions in unpaid taxes and fees.

According to Drilon, the AMLC’S strategy for monitoring does not inspire much confidence that it can truly track money laundering.

The Philippines is under pressure from the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force to tighten its money-laundering regulations. But the proposed bill amending the existing Anti-money Laundering Act is still pending in the Senate.

The AMLC had sought a budget of P226 million for 2021, mainly to fund its badly needed modernization, but the Department of Budget and Management endorsed an outlay of only P85 million.

Despite his criticism of the AMLC, Drilon expressed concern over such miniscule budget, which is even lower than the council’s 2020 appropriation of P130 million.

Meanwhile, Senator Cynthia Villar raised another issue with the AMLC: the proposal to have real estate transactions worth between P1 million and P5 million covered by mandatory pre-reporting by realtors.

Villar noted that money launderers are not the usual buyers of property in this range, but simply people earning between P19,000 a month and P67,000 a month.

The family of Villar, the richest senator based on Statement of Assets Liabilities and Networth for the second year, is in the real estate business, among other enterprises.