3rd term for BSP’s Tetangco

BSP Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas may serve for an unprecedented third term at the helm of the country’s monetary authority—and not even the law limiting central bank appointees to two terms will be a hindrance, if President Duterte has his way.

Tetangco ends his second six-year term as BSP chief in July 2017 and the jockeying for his position among would-be aspirants has begun, but the Inquirer learned Monday that no less than Mr. Duterte himself had given the green light for the effort to retain the internationally respected central bank governor.

“President Duterte has authorized [Finance] Secretary [Carlos] Dominguez to ask Tetangco to stay for another full term,” a ranking Cabinet official said in a telephone call from Lima, Peru. “The President is convinced that Tetangco is the best man for the job.”

However, the New Central Bank Act of 1993 says that members of the BSP’s policymaking Monetary Board—which is chaired by the governor—can only be reappointed once. Tetangco was first named governor by then President Arroyo in 2005 and reappointed by President Aquino in 2011.

“That won’t be a problem,” the Cabinet official assured, explaining that congressional leaders have already been informed of the President’s wish to reappoint Tetangco and that lawmakers have agreed to amend the law in time to allow this to happen.

It remains to be seen, however, if Tetangco will accept the President’s offer.

The central bank chief, who turned 64 last week, had already indicated plans to retire from public service as early as last year, citing health concerns (having had heart surgery several years ago) and wanting to spend more time with his family.

Asked about the President’s outburst last week against the central bank and the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC), which the BSP governor chairs —calling both agencies “garbage” that he resented to this day for supposedly failing to cooperate promptly with the administration’s antidrug efforts—the Cabinet official said: “The President wasn’t talking about Tetangco.”

Incidentally, Duterte’s scathing remarks against BSP and AMLC were made in his speech before officials of the National Bureau of Investigation during the law enforcement body’s anniversary celebrations, which coincided with Tetangco’s own birthday celebration.

Nonetheless, the BSP chief is acknowledged both here and abroad as one of the world’s best central bankers. Just last September, New York-based banking magazine Global Finance awarded  Tetangco his eighth “A” grade in its annual scorecard for central bank governors’ handling of their nations’ respective economies.

Tetangco was one of only eight central bankers from around the world who garnered an “A” grade and even US Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen could only muster an “A minus.”

All told, he has garnered “A” grades for every year of his current term as well as two years of his first time. The challenges Tetangco have hurdled include the outbreak of the 2008 global financial crisis as well as the more recent money-laundering crisis involving Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) that emanated from an $81-million Bangladesh Bank heist.