The Philippines House of Representatives is pushing ahead with belated measures against money laundering in the hope of avoiding imminent financial sanctions.

Three committees have jointly backed amendments requested by President Gloria Arroyo tightening up its anti-money laundering legislation.

The measures, which bring the threshold for reporting suspicious transactions to 500,000 pesos (less than US$10,000), need to be passed by the House and signed off by President Arroyo by February 12.

Black-listed

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If not, the Financial Action Task Force, the Paris-based body which oversees international legal structures to fight financial crime, has threatened to authorise harsh sanctions.

If imposed, the FATF's members - which include the US, Japan and the whole of Western Europe - could limit transactions with the Philippines.

Try again

The Philippines has attempted to comply with the FATF's requirements before, but remains on the organisation's "blacklist" of non-cooperating countries and territories (NCCT).

Previous legislation left the threshold for reporting suspicious transactions at 4m pesos which - at about US$74,000 - is far in excess of the US$10,000 level normal elsewhere.

But the current changes, which allow access to any account without a court order so long as there is a "suspicious transaction", may not go far enough.

The FATF still wants regulators to be able to inspect any deposit account regardless of its size.

And there remain suspicions that the slowness to act may have something to do with the country's rampant corruption.

Mrs Arroyo's government has made little headway, amid plenty of accusations of corrupt activities by its own members.

Listed

The FATF's next plenary session begins on 12 February, and its last NCCT list, published in October, set that as a deadline for both the Philippines and Nigeria - another country judged deficient - to fall in line.

Both are under so-called "Regulation 21", which allows FATF members to warn their financial institutions to take extra care if transactions are lacking sufficient transparency.

The Ukraine, another NCCT, is already facing sanctions, having failed to keep up its end of promises made to the FATF in the past.

The plenary could prove different from previous ones, since the International Monetary Fund is now playing a part in the money laundering inspection process.

Many of its members want to see the NCCT process stopped, saying it unfairly penalises poor countries and lets rich ones off the hook.