One of the most controversial holdover officials of the Aquino administration has resigned. And with Julia Bacay Abad out of the way, perhaps the prosecution of the country’s top “narcos” and their protectors in government may now proceed unimpeded.
Abad, the head of the Anti-Money Laundering Council, said she resigned to give the Duterte administration a free hand in pursuing charges against drug syndicates and other persons of interest that the President has accused the agency of protecting. Abad issued a lengthy statement to media detailing her accomplishments as AMLC executive director, but did not admit that the agency had been used by the previous administration in order to persecute its avowed enemies.
Abad’s resignation came in the wake of repeated accusations made by President Rodrigo Duterte and Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre that the AMLC was not acting quickly enough to help in the prosecution of persons believed to have amassed huge amounts of money from the illegal drug trade. Duterte has also declared that the AMLC has allowed itself to be used by his political enemies, particularly Senator Antonio Trillanes, who alleged right before the May 9 elections that then-candidate Duterte had stashed away hundreds of millions in ill-gotten wealth in an Ortigas-area bank.
The AMLC has been the subject of intense criticism ever since supposedly secret bank records of the late Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona mysteriously appeared during his impeachment trial in the Senate. Abad’s agency has also drawn flak for issuing controversial freeze orders on the assets of former Vice President Jejomar Binay and his family and his close associates, as well as those belonging to businessman Roberto Ongpin.
Abad was reportedly appointed to the top AMLC post in 2013 through the intercession of then Senate President Franklin Drilon. (While the heads of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the Insurance Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission jointly head up the agency, it is the executive director who wields the real power to go after money launderers.)
While Duterte has railed against the alleged inaction of the AMLC, it was Aguirre who pointed out that the agency has not even provided his department with the data in its possession that will be used in prosecuting persons suspected of involvement in the illegal drug trade. Aguirre said that AMLC has only recently submitted the results of its investigation into the bank accounts of the three so-called “narco-generals” linked by the president to the drug trade —many months after they were identified by Duterte as protectors of narcotics syndicates.
Aguirre has also complained that the inaction of the AMLC on his department’s requests to look into the bank accounts of Senator Leila de Lima is keeping him from filing “airtight” charges against the lawmaker. With Abad gone, perhaps the long-delayed prosecution of the senator who is widely believed to have profited immensely from the proliferation of illegal drugs in the national penitentiary may now proceed apace.
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The Western media was all over the Philippines’ case for electing Rodrigo Duterte president last May. They had no idea that just a few months later, the United States would choose Donald J. Trump to be the new “leader of the free world”—and that they would witness their world turned upside down.
Chaos was the order of the day in many major ports of entry in the US, as Trump’s executive order banning people bearing passports from Syria and six other predominantly Muslim nations took effect over the weekend. The order sparked a new wave of protests at the already-crowded American airports where the “screening” was being conducted by US immigration authorities.
Reports of families being prevented from reuniting, of key employees of large US corporations unable to return to work and of refugees who have undergone and passed stringent vetting processes being denied entry filled the American press. And Trump, as Al Pacino’s character in the movie “Scent of A Woman” said memorably, was just getting warmed up.
A federal judge has restrained Trump from implementing his controversial order, widely called the “Muslim ban” even if it did not cover citizens of all nations that are mostly Islamic in population. The order has incensed civil liberties groups and many members of Congress, who pointed out that it was not well thought out nor properly coordinated with agencies like the State Department.
But Trump appears hell-bent on fulfilling the most controversial of his campaign promises, including building a wall across the US’ border with Mexico by having Mexicans pay for it, by way of new taxes on imports sent over by its southern neighbor. In just a week in office, Trump has already declared that he was withdrawing US participation in and support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership and called for the repeal of the universal health care program nicknamed Obamacare, both of which were key initiatives of his predecessor, Barack Obama.
I insist that the only real thing Duterte and Trump have in common is that they were both elected by voters tired with government as usual. Trump is by far the more unpredictable of the two—and the coming days will prove just how much more difficult it will be for Americans to adjust to their new president than Filipinos have had under Duterte.
