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MANILA, Philippines - The Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) has remained tight-lipped on the turn of events in the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona and instead released copies of a primer on the anti-money laundering law.
The Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) gives the Ombudsman authority to look into assets and finances based on a waiver signed by officials in their sworn statements of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN).
The primer is based on the revised implementing rules and regulations of the AMLA of 2001, copies of which were also released yesterday by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
AMLC executive director Vicente Aquino was earlier quoted in reports as saying the council never conducted any audit on the accounts of Corona.
He had also denied that the AMLC was the source of information revealed by Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales in her testimony before the impeachment court on Monday.
Aquino had said that Section 11 of the AMLA allowed the council to inquire into or examine any particular deposit or investment with any banking institution or non-bank financial institution only upon court approval.
“If and when the AMLC applies with a competent court for an inquiry order, the court must first give prior notice to the account owner about a planned inquiry or examination pursuant to the ruling of the Supreme Court,” Aquino said in a statement issued last Feb. 21.
Based on the IRR released by AMLC, all government employees including Corona had signed a waiver allowing the Ombudsman to secure from various government agencies documents pertaining to his or her assets.
The waiver is part of disclosures of business interests and financial connections as well as identification of relatives in government service submitted as required under Republic Act 6713 or the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees.
The SALN submitted by government employees authorizes “the Ombudsman or his duly representative to obtain and secure from all appropriate government agencies including the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) such documents that may show his or her assets, liabilities, net worth, business interests, and financial connections.”
Likewise, the law authorizes the Ombudsman to look into the assets, liabilities, net worth, business interests, and financial connections of the spouses as well as unmarried children below 18 years old of government employees.
All government employees are required to submit their SALN on or before April 15 of each year.
The AMLC is empowered by Republic Act 9160 or the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2001 – as amended by RA 9194 – to look into suspicious transactions or those in excess of P500,000 within one banking day.
The AMLC is authorized by law to require and receive foreign currency and peso-denominated covered or suspicious transaction reports from banks and other covered institutions.
It is also allowed by law to investigate transactions deemed suspicious after an investigation.
Covered institutions including banks are mandated by the law to report to the AMLC all covered and suspicious transactions within five working days from the transaction date and should not exceed 10 working days.
Likewise, the AMLC does not have to get a court order to require covered institutions including banks to submit foreign currency or peso-denominated suspicious transactions.
Amid an earlier denial that AMLC was the source of information used by Morales in her testimony, Aquino was reportedly seen at the Office of the Ombudsman over the weekend in a meeting with Solicitor General Francis Jardeleza for hours ahead of Morales’ taking the witness stand.
Reliable sources said Aquino and Jardeleza, former Deputy Ombudsman for Luzon, worked overtime from Saturday to Sunday supposedly in preparation for Morales’ testimony.
There was no one else at the office when the two met except some security and janitorial service personnel.
It is not clear, however, why Jardeleza – who is known to be close to Morales – was in the weekend meeting which happened two days after the Senate impeachment court directed the Ombudsman to take the witness stand as a hostile witness for the defense.
Morales, in an interview after being called to testify, said she would be willing to appear before the Corona impeachment trial and reveal all she knew about the Chief Justice’s alleged dollar accounts.
Matching information
Sen. Franklin Drilon, meanwhile, said Corona’s dollar accounts with Philippine Savings Bank – shielded from the impeachment court’s eyes by a Supreme Court temporary restraining order – might be one of the various dollar account transactions recorded by the AMLC.
“There are numbers, bank accounts, for example the dollar accounts in PSBank, the numbers of which are in evidence already. We will check if those account numbers mentioned yesterday by Ombudsman Morales jibe with the account numbers presented to the Senate by the PSBank president,” Drilon said.
“It’s very easy to check if those account numbers are among those accounts testified to by the Ombudsman,” he added.
Drilon said that he has no doubt about the authenticity of the documents provided by the Ombudsman in spite of insinuations made by the Chief Justice that the figures were either false or overstated.
“The Ombudsman is a retired justice, you think she would stake her name? It is not likely that the Ombudsman will stake her name (on a fake document),” Drilon said.
According to Morales, her office secured the documents from AMLC as part of a fact-finding procedure concerning complaints filed against the Chief Justice.
Based on the AMLC documents and on the analysis made by the Ombudsman, with the help of the Commission on Audit, the Chief Justice had 82 accounts with transactional balance of $10 million spread over five banks.
Drilon said the presentation made by the Ombudsman alone showed that the Chief Justice failed to disclose a significant amount of cash in his SALNs.
“Those facts can be deduced from those entries in those reports. The only way is for him to take the witness stand because only he knows his accounts,” Drilon said.
He also stressed the Office of the Ombudsman has the authority under the Constitution to look into the bank accounts of Corona and other officials as well as to check on the validity of the entries in SALNs.
“So there was authority on the part of the Ombudsman to look into those accounts,” Drilon said.
“There is that waiver by Corona and the ultimate question is, are these accounts in existence and that is what Chief Justice Corona should confront, and not the technicality that AMLC is authorized (or not),” he added.
Senate President Pro-Tempore Jinggoy Estrada, for his part, cited the broad powers wielded by the Ombudsman under RA 6770 or the law creating the Office of the Ombudsman.
“She can secure any evidence, even from the AMLC,” Estrada said.
However, he expressed concern that this could be dangerous, especially to politicians not allied with the administration.
“The problem here is that it would be a dangerous precedent because those that are hostile to this administration or any administration for that matter, the Ombudsman can just ask the AMLC about the bank accounts of certain personalities,” Estrada said.
He added the defense panel may have miscalculated its strategy of presenting the Ombudsman as a hostile witness in court last Monday.
Estrada said that the defense panel apparently was not aware of the documents in the possession of the Ombudsman or else they would not have presented her.
He reiterated his call for the Chief Justice to testify because only he could shed light on the issues.
Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., for his part, said AMLC needs a court order before it can look into certain bank accounts.
He said that in the Corona trial, the bank secrecy law as well as the Anti-Money Laundering Act may have been compromised by AMLC’s looking over some bank accounts only on the basis of a complaint filed with the Office of the Ombudsman.
“We have to make it even more clear how that happened,” Marcos said, adding that such practice might be used for political harassment.
“It seems that all you have to do now is to file a complaint and this would be investigated by whichever agency. So that seems to be a very low test for the beginning of an investigation and finally for the acquisition of those files that AMLC has developed from their investigation,” Marcos said.
Sen. Joker Arroyo said that the AMLC should explain its examination of Corona’s bank accounts without a court order.
But he stressed Morales cannot be faulted because she only based her testimony on information derived from AMLC.
He warned that the AMLC could be used for vested political interests “because they can freeze the account just like that if they believe it’s suspicious.”
– With Michael Punongbayan, Marvin Sy
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