Metro Manila, Philippines – The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has directed financial institutions to be on guard and strengthen surveillance against vote buying and selling ahead of the midterm elections in May.
The central bank reminded its supervised financial institutions (BSFIs), through Memorandum M-2025-006, to enhance their systems against vote-buying, vote-selling, and abuse of state resources, particularly through digital channels.
It said possible scenarios needed to be checked include:
+ Concentration and/or significant number of account registrations in areas known for vote-buying or selling
+ Large cash transactions and/or encashment of checks during election period
+ Unusual transactions flows between accounts, digital banking and digital wallets, including the velocity and frequency of transactions,
+ Or the unusual volume and/or value in cash in/cash out channels.
The BSP said suspected unlawful transactions can be reported to either the Philippine National Police or National Bureau of Investigation.
“BSFIs should submit suspicious transaction reports to the Anti-Money Laundering Council, when warranted, after due investigation of complex, unusually large transactions, unusual patterns of transactions, which have no underlying legal/trade obligation, purpose or economic justification, or the amount involved is not commensurate with the business or financial profile of the client, and other pattern of transactions indicative of vote-buying and vote-selling, and ASR in elections, money laundering and/or terrorism financing,” the memorandum read.
The BSP said the memorandum complies with the Commision on Elections call for stricter mechanisms against illegal activities such as vote buying and selling.
The campaign period for senatorial and party-list candidates began on Feb. 11. Local bets will launch their campaign on March 28.
Around 68 million Filipinos are eligible to vote in the May 12 elections. They will elect over 18,000 officials nationwide.
