There is history here, too. The same BPI Julia Vargas branch now covered by Sara Duterte’s impeachment subpoena was at the center of Rodrigo Duterte’s 2016 bank account controversy.
Could the Philippines be clinging too tightly to one of banking’s oldest sacred cows, and one of dirty money’s most durable shields? The man running Southeast Asia’s oldest bank might have something to say about that.
In an interview with Rappler, Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) president and chief executive officer TG Limcaoco said the country’s bank secrecy regime remains unusually strict compared with those of most jurisdictions.
Limcaoco would not comment on the case itself. But asked for his personal view on bank secrecy, he was slightly less guarded.
“If you ask me for my personal opinion about bank secrecy, I think very few countries have bank secrecy laws as strict as ours,” he told Rappler on Saturday, August 1.
