Japan puts pressure on RP over money-laundering
Japan puts pressure on RP over money-laundering
Agence France-Presse, Manila
Japan is making it more difficult for Filipino workers there to transfer money to the Philippines banking system after a global money laundering watchdog blacklisted Manila, a Filipino official said Monday.
Senate President Franklin Drilon said a Philippine National Bank (PNB) official had informed him that the Japanese postal authorities had rejected a PNB application last month to set up a remittance system for the estimated 186,316 Filipinos living in Japan.
The news followed a decision Friday by the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to recommend additional counter-measures against the Philippines, due to the failure to remedy loopholes in Manila's 2001 anti money-laundering statute.
Congress last week beat a Feb.12 deadline to pass amendments, but the FATF, set up by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, said the new measures failed to address "previously identified deficiencies" in the law.
Drilon said PNB senior vice president for Asia Isabelita Manalastas told him the Japanese postal system had rejected the remittance system because the Philippines was still on the FATF blacklist.
"In other words, each and every (Filipino worker) transferring money using the Japanese post office's automated teller machine is suspect of possible money laundering," Drilon quoted Manalastas as saying.
The FATF has given the Philippines until March 15 to enact the changes or be hit by counter-measures, which Filipino officials warn could lead to delays in financial transactions.
The most seriously affected would be the seven million Filipinos working overseas who send their salaries home to their families.
President Gloria Arroyo is to meet Thursday with key congressional leaders in the hope of convincing them to pass a law sought by the FATF in a bid to stave off further sanctions, her spokesman Ignacio Bunye said earlier Monday.
"The point is, everybody should now work together to find a way by which we could be able to satisfy the requirements of the FATF," Bunye said.
Arroyo aides said at the weekend that they would ask Congress to introduce stronger safeguards to meet international standards.
Under the version passed last week, regulators would still need a court order to look into suspicious accounts unless the money was suspected to be the proceeds from kidnapping, hijacking or illegal drugs.
Banking officials say prior court approval made it extremely difficult to look into an account before the money was transferred elsewhere.
Arroyo has refused to sign the amendments into law to give Congress time to meet the FATF requirements.