U.S. helps Philippines talk with antimoney laundering body
U.S. helps Philippines talk with antimoney laundering body
Agence France-Presse, Manila
U.S. officials have been helping the Philippines secure a dialogue with representatives of an international anti-money laundering task force which has threatened sanctions against Manila, Filipino officials said on Sunday.
Filipino officials were coordinating with the U.S. Treasury Department to convince the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to hold a dialogue with Manila to resolve issues over money laundering law, senior presidential adviser Gabriel Claudio said.
U.S. envoy to Manila Francis Ricciardone was also helping with coordination with the FATF," Claudio said.
Earlier this month FATF recommended additional counter- measures against the Philippines beginning March 15 if the government failed to plug what it calls loopholes in its 2001 laundering law.
Congress had beaten 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.
Arroyo last week called on the U.S. government to urge fellow FATF members to hold off implementing the sanctions which could effect the billions of dollars in annual remittances by overseas Filipino workers.
Government had also invited FATF to send a team to hold a dialogue with Philippine legislators and to come up with a consensus on amendments to the law.
"The idea is that they (should) talk directly and they hear directly from each other what are the contentious issues," President Gloria Arroyo's spokesman Ignacio Bunye said Sunday.
"They (legislators) know what they're doing and they know the situation in the Philippines which they could explain to the FATF," he said.
The FATF also retained the Philippines on its list of so- called non-cooperative countries, which also include the Cook Islands, Egypt, Grenada, Guatemala, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nauru, Nigeria, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Ukraine.
The 13-year-old FATF was formed to combat tax evasion and drug-related money laundering schemes.