Malacañang on Wednesday released a memorandum instructing the relevant government bodies to immediately establish its national anti-money laundering plan into action so that it meets international standards.

Under Memorandum Circular No. 37, the Anti-Money Laundering Council must report the status of the National Anti-Money Laundering, Counter-Terrorism Financing, and Counter-Proliferation Financing Strategy 2023 to 2027 to Secretary Lucas Bersamin by 8 December.

The AMLC has also been tasked with leading a working team responsible for creating recommendations regarding implementing the memo circular.

"In accordance with their respective mandate, all concerned departments, agencies, bureaus, and instrumentalities of the National Government, including government-owned or –controlled corporations, are directed, and all the local government units are encouraged, to immediately and timely formulate and implement relevant strategies, plans and programs to implement NACS 2023-2027 [National AML/TF/CPF Strategy], particularly its Strategic Objective No. 1," the circular signed by Bersamin read.

The Duterte administration established the National Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Strategy from 2018 to 2022 to create a coordinated strategy for combating money laundering and terrorism financing in the Philippines.

However, the Financial Action Task Force, a global authority on money laundering, placed the Philippines on its gray list in 2021 due to its failure to address deficiencies in its efforts to combat money laundering and terrorism financing.

This decision confirmed the findings of an evaluation report conducted in 2019 by the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering, a regional inter-governmental organization to which the Philippines belongs.

The FATF initially set a deadline for the Philippines to exit the gray list by January 2023, but the country was later granted a one-year extension, extending the deadline until January 2024, owing to persistent shortcomings in its anti-money laundering controls.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas noted earlier this year that the FATF had concerns about the low number of money laundering cases and convictions in the Philippines.

In July, Marcos issued Executive Order 33, which amended Duterte's original order, extending the NACS period from 2018 to 2022 to the new timeframe of 2023 to 2027.

As of September 2023, the Philippines must address eight of 18 International Co-operation Review Group Action Plans for it to exit the FATF Grey List by January 2024.

"The urgent implementation of the NACS 2023-2027, particularly its Strategic Objective 1, will intensify and expedite efforts to address deficiencies identified by the FATF ICRG," the new MC said, noting that another Mutual Evaluation will be conducted in 2026.

"Under international standards on combating ML/TF, countries are required to identify, assess and understand the money laundering and terrorism financing risk for the country, and are mandated, based on said assessment, to apply a risk-based approach to ensure that measures to prevent or mitigate ML/TF are commensurate with the risks identified."