Keep BSP chief in AMLC – Barbers

Sen. Robert Barbers urged his colleagues yesterday to keep the governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) in the three-member Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) for better implementation of the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA).

"I am not in favor of the idea of excluding the BSP governor in the AMLC because removing him will render the council ineffective. The BSP chief’s membership is a significant component of the AMLC," Barbers said.

He said the BSP is the government’s regulator on monetary and fiscal matters.

"It is but normal that its head sit in the council that would enforce the law against money laundering and other illegal transactions in the banking and financial system," he said.

He pointed out that removing the BSP governor from the AMLC would deprive it of the needed expertise in examining complex data and deals in the system for "dirty" money.

Under the present AMLA, the council is chaired by the BSP governor with the heads of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Insurance Commission as members.

Senate President Franklin Drilon and Sen. Edgardo Angara want the BSP chief removed from AMLC. They are proposing that the body be composed of retired justices to insulate it from political influence.

The two made the proposal last week after blaming BSP Gov. Rafael Buenaventura for the confusion over what AMLA amendments the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) wanted Congress to approve.

Buenaventura said he was not to blame, since he gave Drilon copies of all FATF communications containing the task force’s suggestions. He was just being made a scapegoat, he said.

Barbers said Drilon and Angara should reconsider their proposal that justices be named AMLC members instead of experts in banking and related fields.

Retired jurists would know nothing or would have little knowledge about the banking system, the stock market and the insurance industry, where laundered money could be hidden, he said.

As far as he was concerned, he said he believes that members of the judiciary are more vulnerable to political influence than the governor of the Bangko Sentral, which is an independent body under the Constitution.