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Legislators have proposed a super agency that combines the power of the central bank, the securities regulators and the Insurance Commission in one authority.

Sen. Serge Osmena, at the sidelines of ceremonies marking the annual meeting of members of the Chamber of Thrift Banks on Friday, said the super agency has tentatively been called the Monetary Authority of the Philippines.

Alternately, he said, the super body may also be called the Financial Authority of the Philippines.

Osmena, in a group interview, said he is perfecting the research on a bill that incorporates the powers of the different regulators in a single entity, which is seen to end the inevitable passing of the buck from one body to another as sordid details of financial scams and deviant forms of absconding with the people's money are uncovered every so often.

“It will become a bigger house, like they are in London or Singapore where they have the National Service Authority of London and the Monetary Authority of Singapore or MSA,” Osmena said of what will become of the BSP eventually.

Before he ran out of time as a three-term Senator of the Republic back in 2007, Osmena had drawn the structural outlines of the super agency to which then BSP Governor Rafael Carlos Buenaventura had objections as an ill-timed proposal.

Buenaventura said Osmena's ideas may prove unconstitutional, an idea that Osmena promptly refuted by saying the BSP charter, which tasks the BSP as supervising body over banks and financial institutions, did not prohibit him from exercising authority over all other financial players in the market.

“I then told Governor Buenaventura that yes, the BSP is the sole authority over the banks but that there is nothing in its charter that prevents Congress from adding to their responsibilities,” he said.

Buenanventura, then in the thick of implementing a series of financial sector reforms that would eventually shield the industry from turbulent global headwinds, successfully begged for a deferment, Osmena said.

He also said the different regulators supposedly meet more or less regularly to flesh out the issues involved in so-called Monday morning meetings.

Osmena insisted that while Monday morning meetings may be useful, what he hopes to accomplish is an end to all the finger pointing and be able to say to a particular authority in a crisis that “yes, you are in charge in all these and you are solely responsible.”

He also bared support for current measures as allowing the BSP to pay for the legal expense of officials brought to court in the performance of their duties.

“This reform will probably take some time to pass but it will muster Congress,” Osmena said.

He also bared similar reform measures to correct loopholes in the Anti-Money Laundering Act of AMLA where a court could freeze a given bank account for 20 days but prohibits the authorities from making inquiries into the same account.

At present, an individual with suspected accounts need to do is wait the 20-day period and bring the money elsewhere when the legal prohibition lapses, frustrating anti-money laundering officials who have tracked and tied down suspects to particular accounts as proof of their misdeeds.

Loopholes into joint accounts need also to be strengthened following the dismissal of a laundering complaint on the basis of one wife's complaint that while the husband was suspect she was not. - PNA

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