The Philippines moved closer to exiting the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) gray list after making progress on its action plan to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.
The FATF said in a statement on June 28, 2024 that the Philippines made significant progress in enhancing its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) regime.
“Since June 2021, when the Philippines made a high-level political commitment to work with the FATF and APG to strengthen the effectiveness of its AML/CFT regime, the Philippines has taken significant steps towards improving its AML/CFT regime,” it said.
The FATF also highlighted the increased efforts of the country in ML investigation and prosecution. “Demonstrating an increase in ML investigations and prosecutions in line with risk; enforcement of beneficial ownership transparency obligations and law enforcement access to those beneficial ownership data records; and that risk-based supervision of DNFBPs is occurring,” it said.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has directed all relevant government agencies to address remaining action plan items by year’s end to trigger the exit process in January 2025.
The National Anti-Money Laundering, Counter-Terrorism Financing, and Counter-Proliferation Financing Coordinating Committee (NACC) and other agencies said they are working to meet the president’s directive.
Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, who heads the NACC, reaffirmed the Philippines’ commitment to combating money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing of weapons of mass destruction at a recent FATF meeting.
The FATF continues to urge swifter implementation of the action plan to address strategic deficiencies, though the deadline expired in January 2023.
Anti-Money Laundering Council executive director Matthew David assured the FATF of the Philippines’ continued efforts. He cited remaining deficiencies, including demonstrating the use of AML/CTF controls to mitigate risks from casino junkets, implementing cross-border measures at major air and seaports, and increasing prosecutions of terrorism financing cases.
“We welcome FATF’s recognition of our progress,” David said. “We remain focused on addressing the remaining action plan items.”
