Senate President Pro Tempore Ping Lacson is pushing major amendments to the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) to strengthen the Anti-Money Laundering Council’s (AMLC) authority in pursuing increasingly sophisticated financial crimes, a move that comes in the wake of alleged multibillion-peso irregularities in flood control projects.
Lacson’s Senate Bill 1557 aims to expand the AMLC’s investigative reach, widen the list of covered entities, and modernize predicate offenses to better monitor suspicious transactions. He warned the Philippines risks being returned to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Greylist ahead of the 2027 mutual evaluation if the law is not updated.
“Recent corruption issues have highlighted the complexities of financial crimes. Updating the AMLA to meet the requirements of the times would also prevent us from being placed in the FATF Greylist again,” Lacson said.
The measure proposes key changes, including authority for the AMLC to issue non-court subpoenas, directly file freeze and civil forfeiture petitions, suspend suspicious transactions, and conduct bank inquiries without a court order—similar to powers invoked in cases involving kidnapping, illegal drugs, terrorism, arson, and murder.
Other reforms include designating virtual asset service providers and trusts as covered persons, expanding predicate offenses to include terrorism-related crimes, cybercrime, anti-dummy violations, and agricultural economic sabotage, and setting a ₱150,000 customer due diligence threshold for casinos.
SB 1557 also seeks to cover real estate buyers and sellers, lawyers and accountants serving covered entities, and all online gambling operators. It enhances the AMLC’s quasi-judicial powers, allows inspections of covered persons, and protects personnel from harassment suits.