SENATE President Vicente Sotto III on Monday said the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas was urging lawmakers to repeal Republic Act 1405 or the Law on Secrecy of Bank Deposits pursuant to the request of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
“Tamang tama may mga bagong hinihiling ang Central Bank, gusto nila i-lift ‘yung Bank Secrecy Law, hinihiling daw ng FATF,” Sotto told reporters in a virtual interview.
“Medyo mabigat na discussion sa amin ‘yan but we have to take it up,” he added.
FATF is a Paris-based intergovernmental organization crafting policies against money laundering.
Sotto did not mention further details or the extent of the BSP’s request for lifting of the said law because he only mentioned it in passing while discussing the public officials’ obligation to disclose their health status.
RA 1405 prohibits the disclosure of or inquiry to bank deposits “except upon written permission of the depositor, or in cases of impeachment, or upon order of a competent court in cases of bribery or dereliction of duty of public officials, or in cases where the money deposited or invested is the subject matter of the litigation.”
It was passed into law in 1955 to “to give encouragement to the people to deposit their money in banking institutions and to discourage private hoarding so that the same may be properly utilized by banks in authorized loans to assist in the economic development of the country.”
Senator Panfilo Lacson, earlier this year, pushed for amendments in the Bank Secrecy Law to prevent money laundering. He also wants public officials to be excluded from the said law to help the government go after corrupt ones easily.(GMA News)
