THE nation has been desensitized with a barrage of sad and discouraging news from the financial and business sector, such as a stock market index that is so low it has breached the 6,000-mark, with so many falling knives among the index shares; an inflation rate that can barely be tamed even by serious government intervention; the ever-rising prices of gasoline, diesel oil, LPG and other petroleum products, etc. triggering more expensive food, transport and other commodities and services.
We have long been accustomed to bad news that this piece of good news last week is reason enough to be ecstatic — the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global watchdog fighting dirty money, announced that it had removed the Philippines from its “grey list” of countries under increased scrutiny, while it added Laos and Nepal to the list.
The intergovernmental body combating money laundering and terrorism financing added the Philippines to the grey list in June, 2021 over a host of concerns, such as mitigating dirty money risks associated with casino junkets, sanctioning unregistered remittance operators, and prosecuting terrorism financing cases.
`… the presidential admonition was enough for the agencies, such as the National Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism Coordinating Council to perform well.’
Last year, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. urged all government agencies to work hard to have the Philippines removed from the grey list within the year 2024. This did not happen though, but the presidential admonition was enough for the agencies, such as the National Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism Coordinating Council to perform well.
It needs to be explained that the Philippines’ four-year inclusion in the FATF’s watchlist made it more difficult for the country to obtain credit and discouraged foreign banks from transacting with their Philippine counterparts. This also meant that the cost of sending money to the Philippines, particularly by Filipinos working overseas, increased and led to the utilization of non-official channels.
Senate President Francis Escudero, who pushed the amendment to the Anti-Money Laundering Act to include casinos in the law’s coverage, on the suggestion of the FATF, said the reputation of the Philippines in the international community is at stake in the grey list.
“Now that we have hurdled this long-standing obstacle, we expect to see even more investment inflows into the country, as well as easier and less expensive transactions for our OFWs (overseas Filipino workers) wherever they are situated,” Escudero said.
The Anti-Money Laundering Council meanwhile said the country’s exit from the grey list would reduce requirements for international money transfers, help attract investments and aid OFWs who send remittances through banks.
This development is expected to facilitate faster and lower-cost cross-border transactions, reduce compliance barriers, and enhance financial transparency, the council said, adding that a country under FATF’s grey list is placed under increased monitoring until it has rectified identified flaws in its financial system.
Meanwhile, the FATF encouraged the Philippines to continue its work in ensuring that its measures countering the financing of terrorism are appropriately applied.
The concerned government agencies and officials involved in protecting the inflow and outflow of money for use in terrorism and other transnational crimes should ramp up their vigilance so that the Philippines would not return to the grey list anymore.
