How strongmen abuse tools for fighting financial crime

They can get Western governments and banks to crack down on exiled dissidents

Demonstrators hold up placards as they protest against an anti-terror bill outside the Philippine congress in Quezon city, Metro Manila, Philippines, June 3rd 2020 — Photograph: Getty Images

Jul 9th 2024

In May 27 members of the Community Empowerment Resource Network (CERNET), a Philippine charity, were charged with bankrolling communist rebels. Straight away the case looked strange. A social-media post by police claimed they had jailed Estrella Flores-Catarata, one of CERNET’s associates, who received an award from the UN for her work with indigenous people last year. She has no criminal record and was set free after paying bail. Other charities that support small-scale farmers and help people after natural disasters have also had their top brass charged and accounts frozen for allegedly breaching the Philippines’s Anti-Terrorism Act, a draconian law passed in 2020.

This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Good cop, bad cop”