The criticisms made by two US envoys are contained in a series of cables from 2005 and 2008, and have been made public by the whistle-blower website, Wikileaks.
Former US ambassadors to Manila Francis Ricciardone and Kristie Kenney, in separate cable dispatches sent to Washington, said the banking secrecy laws in the country were "hampering" transparent governance and anticorruption mechanisms, and went against the global trend relaxing bank secrecy laws.
Foreshadowing events in the Philippines as early as 2007, Kenney talked of "institutional challenges"-which included bank secrecy laws and poor protection for whistle-blowers-as serious barriers to corruption convictions in the Philippines.
"The bank secrecy laws in the Philippines are among the strictest in the world," said Ricciardone in a January 2005 cable (code: 05MANILA84, http://cables.mrkva.eu/cable.php?id=25003), in which he related the transparency problems besetting the country.
The United States is apparently particularly concerned about the Foreign Currency Deposit Act of the Philippines (FCDA), otherwise known as Republic Act No. 6426. The FCDA is a legacy of the martial-law era, having been signed into law by the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1974.
The FCDA makes the revelation of foreign currency details unlawful, except upon a written permission of the depositor.
The other law is the Bank Secrecy Law (Republic Act No. 1405) enacted on September 9, 1955.
RA 1405 declares all deposits absolutely confidential, with the exceptions of: written consent of the depositor; in cases of impeachment; upon order of a competent court in cases of bribery or dereliction of duty of public officials; or in cases where the money deposited or invested is the subject matter of the litigation.
Kenney and Ricciardone’s remarks came on the heels of a global rethink of bank secrecy laws.
"The era of banking secrecy is over," declared members of the Group of 20 leading economies (G20) at the 2009 summit in London in a joint communiqué.
The global financial crisis was the catalyst for the G20 crackdown on bank secrecy that began in 2009.
In order to manage the global financial crisis and prevent future crises from reoccurring, financial institutions need to pursue accountability reforms, said the G20 communiqué.
The FCDA was invoked last week by the Philippine Savings Bank (PSBank) in refusing to divulge the alleged foreign currency deposits of Chief Justice Renato Corona, which the Supreme Court acceded to by issuing a temporary restraining order (TRO).
The Senate impeachment court voted on Monday to respect the TRO, effectively barring the prosecution from opening the alleged foreign currency deposits with PSBank of the Chief Justice.