Vice President Jejomar Binay meets members of the Filipino-Chinese Club at the Manila Hotel on Friday. Binay promised to pursue the present administration’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipinong Program (4Ps) and implement changes in the Bureau of Internal Revenue.(MNS photo)
MANILA (Mabuhay) – Vice President Jejomar Binay’s camp on Monday challenged other candidates to allow the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) to examine their bank accounts here and abroad.
Lawyer Rico Quicho, Binay’s campaign spokesperson, said the candidates should also allow the AMLC to look into the bank accounts of their spouses, other members of their families, friends and associates.
“Perhaps at this point the other candidates should seriously consider allowing AMLC to look into their accounts – and those of their spouses, family, friends, and associates – both here in the Philippines and in other countries,” he said in a press statement.
Quicho also said the candidates should also consider allowing AMLC to examine as well the bank accounts here and in other countries of businesses, corporations, and foundations identified with the candidate or their spouses, family, friends, and associates.
“[These] were all scrutinized by AMLC in the Vice President’s case,” Quicho said.
Quicho said other candidates should also make public their Income Tax Returns (ITRs) and Statements of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALNs) for the past 30 years.
“This will allow the voters to see if the candidates’ professed net worth is truly justified and if the proper taxes were paid to the government,” he said.
Sen. Francis Escudero, who is running for vice president, has also called on the other candidates to waive their bank secrecy rights.
Quicho, meanwhile, said there was need for Binay to sign a bank secrecy waiver as all of his bank accounts and those of his family, friends, and associates have already been examined thoroughly by the AMLC.
“There have been calls for candidates to sign a waiver to open bank accounts. Leave the Vice President out of this drama. It is a cheap gimmick intended to divert people’s attention from the real issues: poverty, unemployment, the lack of compassion for the poor and proven incompetence,” Quicho said.
Quicho said it was previously “maliciously and erroneously publicized” that the Vice President had 242 bank accounts, yet only one bank account under Binay’s name is on record in the AMLC’s report to the court.
“The total deposit of this account, according to AMLC, is in the amount of ?1.7 million and not billions as wrongly and maliciously reported earlier,” he said, adding that the account has been duly accounted for and reported in Binay’s 2010 Statement of Contributions & Expense (SOCE), ITR, and SALN.
“As a sign of good faith, The Vice President voluntarily manifested before the court that he will not touch the said account for the duration of the case, which I am confident will eventually be dismissed,” he said. (MNS)