MORE than P32 billion ($633M), larger than the annual budget of a big department of the government, arrived “unabashed, unabated” through 890 transactions since September 2019. The Anti-Money Laundering Council showed “no enthusiasm,” in Senator Richard Gordon’s words, to stop the flow. Dirty money from drugs, terrorism, human trafficking? In their previous incarnation a few years ago, AMLC officials were asked by then Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, “What are you waiting for?” As expected, there was no answer.
With public attention riveted these days on Code Red declared against COVID-19, the AMLC board has time and resources, if not the brains, to craft a script for the next hearing. One of them had pleaded helplessness to show cause against the couriers, blissfully unaware that the Blue Ribbon committee already had in its possession all the relevant reports collated by Customs, Immigration, etc. Dirty money is also easy money, it seems.
I’m more concerned with the dirty money that I received as change during my Saturday and Sunday outings. I shopped a bit, had lunch, merienda, dinner at different shops, and each time the change I was given came in the form of diseased, filthy, germ-ridden bills, in 50s and mostly 20s. There were so many 20s when it could have been a few 100s! The overflow of small change was not a coincidence, it could only have been because the storeowners had been given a ton of 20s by their bank to dispose of.
Are the banks in general, and Bangko Sentral in particular, aware that dirty paper money can be a carrier of the dreaded COVID-19? In the US, bills from China are being quarantined for 7 to 10 days instead of the usual 5 to 7 as a precaution against the spread of the virus. Let’s hope that President Duterte, whose presidential security (inner circle) are now trying to shield him from the virus with a “no touch” policy, won’t need to count the small change in his wallet (or Kitty’s).
BSP recently announced that P20 bills will be phased out to give way to coins of the same denomination. Bank tellers whom I’ve inquired from feign innocence, ignorance, or both. To BSP, recalling JPE’s query to AMLC, what are you waiting for?
