Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III today revealed that the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) and its attached agency, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), have agreed to take steps leading to a closer working relationship in support of President Duterte’s all-out drive to run after suspected money launderers.
Dominguez said “these four institutions’ adoption of a much closer working arrangement with respect to investigations on suspected crooks who make use of our tough bank secrecy law to stash their loot in our banking system is expected to preclude from hereon any miscommunication similar to the one that has apparently and unfortunately taken place just recently—and which shouldn’t have happened in the first place as all of these agencies are equally committed as front-liners in the President’s war on criminals and grafters.”
“[BSP Governor Amando] Tetangco, a respected member of the economic team, has been providing valuable help in the pursuit of criminals engaged in money laundering,” Dominguez said.
The timely submission of documents needed by the NBI for its investigation after the initial “wrinkle” in their working arrangement illustrates that the concerned institutions have been up to the task but regrettably have had to observe the normally tedious procedures as required by law, he said.
Dominguez said “the BSP have not been remiss in doing their job supportive of the Duterte administration’s anti-graft crusade, but the tedious legal process that has from the start been a stumbling block to the immediate prosecution of suspected money launderers underline the urgency for the Congress to pass new legislation relaxing the country’s bank secrecy law, which has among the world’s most restrictive regulations.”
He said “this is one reason why the future success of the comprehensive tax reform program that the Department of Finance has proposed to Congress to pass as a way to partly raise enough funds for the government’s anti-poverty agenda is contingent on our legislators’ passage of a complementary law relaxing the country’s bank secrecy law.”
