FOLLOWING the entry of billions worth of cold cash, lawmakers on Monday filed House Bill 6516 criminalizing the cash smuggling into or out of the Philippines.
HB 6516 or the Anti-Bulk Cash Smuggling was filed by House Committee on Ways and Means Chairman Joey Sarte Salceda, and the committee’s vice chairmen Estrellita Suansing and Sharon Garin, Muntinlupa Rep. Rozzano Rufino Biazon and Marikina Rep. Stella Quimbo.
The bill criminalizes bulk cash smuggling, ensuring that the evasion of a paper trail for cash transfers is not tolerated under the law.
It expands the coverage of the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2001 (Amla) to include one-time cash transports of more than P500,000 at any one time. This also empowers the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) to define a cumulation of closely related events that would constitute “one time.”
The measure, likewise, includes the Bureau of the Treasury, through the Treasurer of the Philippines, in the AMLC to facilitate counterpart-to-counterpart cooperation, as many countries’ anti-money laundering efforts are spearheaded by their Secretaries or Ministers of the Treasury.
It also provides for the forfeiture in favor of the Philippines of assets related to cash smuggling.
The bill also makes “escorting” cash smugglers illegal as part of the criminalization of the conspiracy to smuggle cash. It also makes declarations of cash transport amounts “under oath,” effectively making any misdeclaration perjurious.
The bill mandates AMLC representative in airports, develops a rapid-reporting mechanism between authorities and AMLC, while expanding AMLC’s powers of surveillance over airports and ports.
“Bulk cash smuggling is a serious national security risk as much as it is a risk to the country’s institutions. Bulk cash smuggling suspected to be in the billions of pesos are enough to shift political fortunes and corrupt institutions in the country, facilitating crime and other illegal activities,” said Salceda.
In 2019, Salceda said only about 1,015 tourists declared to have brought in more than $10,000 out of the 12 million foreign arrivals the same year. “Among these declared bulk foreign currency imports, about P28.6 billion were brought in by four groups—Rodriguez group, Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGO), Singaporean and Chinese groups—and yet, authorities were unable to obtain sufficient information about the source, purpose, or destination of these funds,” he added.
Salceda said the more the country’s financial authorities—including the Department of Finance, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the AMLC—are unable to respond to bulk cash smuggling decisively, the greater becomes the risk of the country being delisted from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) for being a high-risk base for terrorism financing and money laundering.
The lawmaker said this delisting would have serious implications on the ability of Philippine financial institutions to expand and do business transnationally, as this would also carry broader dangers to the country’s credit standing internationally, making the country a riskier borrower of funds.