Published on Monday, 25 February 2013 21:05

Written by Mia M. Gonzalez | Reporter .

http://businessmirror.com.ph/index.php/news/top-news/9798-pagcor-manual-to-help-vs-money-laundering

The forthcoming Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) rules for casinos “may be enough” to help the Philippines comply with the requirements of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a senator seeking fresh amendments to the Anti-Money Laundering Act (Amla) said on Monday.

Sen. Teofisto Guingona III made the statement when asked if the Pagcor manual due in September—to provide anti-money laundering procedures for casinos, among other things—would be enough to help the country comply with the FATF requirements.

“Pagcor rules may be enough,” Guingona said.

The senator, one of the authors of the latest amendments to the Amla, had said that he would pursue at the 16th Congress the inclusion of casinos among institutions required to report transactions of at least P500,000 to the Anti-Money Laundering Council.

At its plenary in Paris last week, the FATF decided to keep the Philippines out of its blacklist of “vulnerable jurisdictions ”citing” significant” improvements in its drive against money launderers and terrorist financiers, but noted the continued exclusion of casinos from institutions required to report on money-laundering activities.

When asked, Sen. Franklin Drilon, chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, said in a media interview at the Liberal Party headquarters in Cubao that if the Pagcor rules “will put at us on the same level as the other jurisdictions, then there is nothing wrong with our adopting this in the legislation that we may enact.”

Responding to questions, Drilon said he would propose amendments in Amla patterned after the action taken by countries that have casinos and are under the jurisdiction of the FATF like Singapore.

“We will pursue further amendments. We will look at how Singapore deals with this problem…. We will look at it and we will try to pattern our proposed legislation on these jurisdictions which have already gone through this,” Drilon said.

He added, “We will examine our legislation and we will see how the casinos are being treated in other jurisdictions that are covered by the FATF jurisdiction and how for example, Singapore—they have a casino, how do they deal with the FATF recommendations? That is how we will look at it. Because we’re all in the same boat.”

Francis Hernando, Pagcor vice president for gaming and licensing, said in a media interview last week that Pagcor is developing a manual on casino regulations in the country which will include anti-money laundering procedures, to be implemented by September.

Hernando had said the move was prompted by Pagcor’s desire to be “recognized as a serious jurisdiction internationally.”

He said that in places like Macau, Singapore, Las Vegas, New Jersey and Australia, casinos are subject to “a formal set of rules that is applied to everybody for a level playing field” and that these rules are “predictable, there are set sanctions for certain infractions.”