Cayetano: Go after corrupt officials laundering money

Reiterates calls to sign the bank secrecy waiver for all candidates

Vice presidential candidate and Senate Majority leader Alan Peter Cayetano today said that the government must go after corrupt officials laundering money through the banks.

In a Senate Blue Ribbon investigation to the $ 81 million money-laundering operation involving the Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC), Cayetano drew attention to Binay’s own “money-laundering scheme” using the same bank.

Cayetano, citing the report of the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC), where Gerardo Limlingan, an alleged dummy of Binay, had transactions with the RCBC amounting to P 3.1 billion. The senator said that Limlingan’s transactions alone is equivalent to $ 68.1 million or just $ 12.6 million short of the $ 81 million allegedly withdrawn from Bangladesh’s bank account in the United States.

The one page portion of the report Cayetano distributed to the media showed that Gerardo Limlingan, an alleged dummy of Vice President Binay, had 1 transaction of 2 Billion, and 2 transactions of 500 Million pesos through the Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation.  The same bank in question in the ongoing Senate investigation on Money Laundering.

“This cannot be denied, the same bank was involved on both cases and unscrupulous government officials and their accomplices continue to hide behind the same banking law. If the world is horrified with the robbing of Bangladesh’s bank account by faceless hackers, deemed by many as one of the biggest heist in recent history, here in the Philippines, the alleged plunderers of the people’s money are holding the highest positions of the country and are even running for President” Cayetano said.

Cayetano also said that even the Napoles scam which allegedly plundered our country’s funds of Billions of pesos also used the banks, also using dummies such as her drivers and secretaries to open accounts with our banks and launder billions of pesos of the people’s money.

Cayetano renewed his challenge to Vice President Binay and all candidates and politicians to open their bank accounts and waive their rights to bank secrecy to finally put and end to corruption.

Cayetano together with his running mate, Mayor Rodrigo Duterte signed a waiver of bank secrecy and challenged all candidates to sign a manifesto doing the same.   To date, no other candidate has signed the manifesto.

"Our challenge is a simple integrity check that would enable all candidates to sufficiently demonstrate to the public their sincerity in promoting transparency and fighting corruption. We cannot entrust the next government in the hands of plunderers and those who turned a blind eye to the disorder caused by corruption," Cayetano concluded. #