EDITORIAL - BIR, AMLC team up

A statement issued at the start of the week announced that the Bureau of Internal Revenue was teaming up with the Anti-Money Laundering Council to boost the campaigns against tax evasion and money laundering. This is a welcome development, although people are wondering why it took so long. The BIR and AMLC have related mandates, and strengthening cooperation between the two agencies should have been pursued since the council was created pursuant to Republic Act 9160, the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2001.

Coordinated work between the BIR and AMLC can strengthen the campaign against graft and corruption as well as other criminal activities such as illegal gambling and smuggling. Even suspected drug traffickers who may be hard to pin down with solid evidence can be pursued for tax evasion and money laundering.

With the two agencies teaming up, they should be on the lookout for the laundering of dirty money through election campaigns. This is currently being probed in the case of Alice Guo, who is suspected to have amassed unexplained wealth and financed her candidacy for mayor of Bamban, Tarlac using proceeds from a Philippine offshore gaming operator hub in the town. The POGO was raided and shut down on charges of engaging in cyberscams, human trafficking and torture.

Congress is also pursuing reports that POGO money was used as reward for police officers who met a supposed quota for killing suspects in the previous administration’s bloody crackdown on illegal drugs.

POGOs aren’t the only sources of dirty money for election campaigns. Notorious jueteng lords have used dirty money for successful election campaigns, becoming mayors and other local government executives. Others, including drug traffickers listed in the order of battle of anti-narcotics agencies, bought influence by using their dirty money to contribute to the campaigns of candidates seeking high office.

Seeing how Alice Guo exploited the system, the BIR and AMLC must work together, with assistance from other agencies, in preventing campaign finance from being used as a dirty money laundromat.