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MANILA, Philippines – On Wednesday, senators disapproved of a proposal that would require the mandatory reporting of a person who buys a property for 1 million pesos in cash.
During Wednesday’s Senate committee on public services hearing, Anti-Money Laundering Council Executive Director Mel Georgie Racela revealed the P1 million threshold for the real estate transaction deal that they would propose to be covered by the Anti-Money Laundering Act. -Money Laundering (AMLA).
“That was the result of our committee hearings in the House of Representatives, where we reached the P1 million cash transaction threshold,” Racela said, responding to questions from Senator Grace Poe, who is chairing the committee.
“To illustrate, this is a real estate client or buyer bringing in P1 million in cash to buy real estate,” he further said.
But some senators questioned the proposal, which Senator Imee Marcos called “absurd.”
“P1 million cannot be the threshold. Questions to real estate developers. Today, what is low-cost housing or social housing? Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon asked.
“P1 million is simply too onerous and onerous. That is $ 20,000. Can you tell me Mr. AMLC, in another jurisdiction, what can you buy a house for $ 20,000? Drilon said later.
Poe agreed with Drilon, noting the number of reports that AMLC would receive if each real estate agent and broker made the report.
“There will probably be like hundreds of thousands in a week?” Poe asked.
The committee was previously told that the most recent records showed about 11,000 registered sellers and about 31,000 brokers in the real estate industry.
For her part, Senator Cynthia Villar explained that in 2005 the cost of a house was already P3 million.
“If you adjust for inflation… it should be more than P4M. Kasi noong 2005, if we have an inflation rate of 2.5 percent and more than P4M na iyon ”, said Villar.
“What is that for poor Filipinos? Is that a load of money? They will deceive me, ”he added.
Given this, the senators also questioned the proposed inclusion of agents and brokers in the AMLA coverage when real estate transactions are available in the Registry of Deeds.
“Are you telling us that real estate transactions are generally used by money launderers in our country, so that transactions must be covered by the anti-money laundering law? And assuming that it is, isn’t the remedy to require the Registrar of Deeds to report all suspicious transactions or transactions that exceed the threshold amount instead of imposing an additional burden on realtors? “Drilon said.
Responding to this, Racela explained that there were several properties “found related [to] financing of terrorism “.
“So we confirm, Senator Drilon, that the real estate vehicle is being used as a money laundering scheme,” he said later. [ac]
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