The Philippines may find itself being placed on the blacklist of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) if Congress is unable to hurdle the passage into law of the remaining bill amending a provision in the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) in time for the plenary meeting of the Paris-based watchdog in mid October.
The Senate is set to go on recess this week and return on Oct. 8, just a week before the scheduled reconvening of FATF on Oct. 15.
“We may again find ourselves being placed on the FATF blacklist,” Sen. Sergio Osmeña III said before taking the floor in the upper chamber to interpellate Sen. Teofisto “TG” Guingona III, principal sponsor of the bill which seeks to expand the coverage of the law to include tax evasion among the so-called predicate crimes.
Osmeña, one of the authors of the proposed amendment, sounded off to his colleagues the possible inclusion of the Philippines on the list of non-compliant countries should Congress fail to pass the third amendment in time  for the FATF plenary.
A number of senators have enlisted to interpellate the measure but no one was ready to deliberate it during Tuesday’s plenary proceedings.
Among those listed to interpellate the sponsor include Senators Joker Arroyo, Panfilo Lacson, Loren Legarda, Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada, Miriam Defensor Santiago, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Ralph Recto and Manuel Villar.
“I just want to put that on record,” Guingona was quoted as saying.
The issue on the inclusion of tax evasion as a predicate crime is one of the major issues hindering early passage of the bill. It is considered highly contentious as no less than Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile noted that such cases had been used for political oppression in other countries.
Due to the unavailability of the senators, Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III was prompted to defer consideration of the bill when Congress resumes proceedings in October.
Osmeña broached the idea of inviting Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Amando Tetangco to join a caucus of the senators to help clarify AMLA issues in order to speed up passage of the amending bill before the FATF meeting in Paris on Oct. 15 to 19.
The senator said Tetangco’s inputs on the immediate legislation of the bill could expedite the deliberations  since BSP governor can provide needed answers on some concerns being raised by his colleagues.
“We have been through this before when we passed the first to AMLA amendments sought by FATF. (They’re) asking us to introduce more amendments because it found the Philippine law to be porous,” he explained.
The Philippines is currently just a notch from away being blacklisted by FATF. Among the consequences of which is that it would make difficult dollar remittances to the country for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
“If somebody wants to send money to the Philippines from the Middlea East, for example, it first goes to New York.  And,  if a red flag is issued by a regulatory agency like the FATF with jurisdiction to watch closely dollar remittances to the Philippines and more people will be hired to watch us which is additional costs to them and they will just say ‘go to another bank.’ This means local banking will also be hampered,” he said.
“This is why we are asking our colleagues to seriously passing the measure. This is not a partisan measure. It seeks to improve the Philippines standing in the rest of the world,” he said.