The AMLC treatment

manilastandardtoday.com /2015/05/15/the-amlc-treatment/
By Jojo Robles | May. 15, 2015 at 12:01am
The weapon of choice of the Aquino administration against its perceived enemies
has been unsheathed. And the unleashing of the Anti-Money Laundering Council on
Vice President Jejomar Binay only means that it is time to go for broke to bring down
the widely perceived early frontrunner in the 2016 presidential elections.
Previously, the AMLCs vast powers to look into bank accounts and other financial
records of foes of President Noynoy Aquino and his minions were used on Chief
Justice Renato Corona and businessman Roberto Ongpin. In both cases,
investigations by AMLC were somehow made public even if they didnt lead to
anything except to generate propaganda mileage.
Of course, Im aware that Aquino has denied having anything to do with the exposing of the Court of
Appeals order allowing AMLC to freeze a total of 242 bank accounts, insurance policies and other financial
instruments supposedly belonging to Binay and people suspected of being his dummies. But the fact that
both Corona and Ongpin in the case involving the alleged behest loans granted to the businessman by
the Development Bank of the Philippines were subjected to the AMLC treatment provides an eloquent
rebuttal to the most strident of palace denials.
The use once again of AMLC as a tool to make perceived political foes cry uncle, this time against Binay,
is a pitiful devaluation of a law that was originally intended to stop narcotics kingpins and terrorists from
using the global financial system to hide their loot. AMLC, after all, was created more than two decades
ago through the Anti-Money Laundering Act, to allow the Philippines to avoid being placed in the blacklist
of the international Financial Action Task Force.
At that time, the world financial system was awash with dirty money being laundered through the banks
by drug dealers, on the one end, and terrorist organizations who were receiving funds for their nefarious
actions, on the other. The Filipino bankers and technocrats who pushed for compliance with FATF
strictures by passing AMLA could never have imagined that the law would become the favored tool to bring
down uncooperative politicians just two decades later.
There are two possible reasons why this administration decided to use AMLCs draconian measures
against Corona, Ongpin and now Binay. Apart from the prohibiting the target of a money-laundering
investigation from gaining access to funds, a court-approved AMLC freeze, if divulged to the media, also
has the potential to destroy reputations even if no irregularity is ever found, like in the cases of Corona
and Ongpin.
The banks and business in general, even if such news sends chills down their collective spine, are
powerless to stop AMLC from snooping into their clients financial affairs despite the usual confidentiality
which allows them to protect these customers. As for businessmen like Ongpin whose financial assets are
frozen, even if they had merely been entrusted by other investors, they lose all access to these funds
and they can be bankrupted in the meantime.
In the current Binay-directed AMLC investigation, people like businessman Antonio Tiu, majority owner of
listed companies like Sunchamp, the damage could also be just as severe. On the mere suspicion that Tiu

was being used as a front for Binay, the trader could have already suffered irreparable damage to his
reputation never mind that, just a few years ago, Aquino himself was praising Tiu while citing his
achievements as an outstanding young man and businessman.
As for Binay himself, the six-month freeze order has the laudable (for the ruling Liberal Party, anyway)
result of keeping him away from funds that he could use for his declared bid for the presidency in 2016, at
least for half a year. If nothing comes out of the AMLC investigation, that is already a huge victory.
Given the weak showing in various popularity and acceptability surveys of prospective LP candidates
against Binay, thats no small triumph. And if, as Senator Antonio Trillanes has predicted, the freezing of
Binays assets will make him withdraw from the race altogether, then thats a real windfall.
***
As Ive said, I havent heard of an AMLC investigation that has led to the seizure of ill-gotten assets or the
conviction of a money launderer. And if you believe reports that the government itself is the biggest money
launderer of all in this country, washing clean dirty foreign cash through the casinos of the Philippine
Amusement and Gaming Corp., you really shouldnt be surprised if AMLC, for all its powers, has never
really caught someone for perpetrating the crime it was created for.
If AMLC were really true to its mandate, it would have gone after all the members of both Houses of
Congress linked to the pork barrel and Disbursement Acceleration Program scandals. But it never did,
naturally, and for obvious reasons.
AMLC is just another a tool reserved for use by the Aquino administration against its enemies. And now
that its been employed so successfully by this government, its easy to see how it will be used over and
over again by those who will become its future masters.
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