The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) confirmed on Thursday that a family member of host and former volleyball player Gretchen Ho was denied a dollar exchange transaction at Oslo’s Gardermoen Airport due to an outdated anti-money laundering list.
In a social media post earlier this week, Ho shared that her mother “got denied” when trying to exchange US dollars. According to Ho, the staff at the counter said, “You came from the Philippines? We cannot exchange your dollars because of the corruption and money laundering in the Philippines.”
The DFA said the forex counter had mistakenly relied on an “outdated list” that still categorized the Philippines under the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list—an international list identifying countries with deficiencies in anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing measures.
The agency clarified that the Philippines was removed from the FATF grey list in February 2025 and from the European Union’s version of the list in August 2025.
According to the DFA, Norwegian Foreign Ministry officials have pledged to coordinate with the Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway to ensure the Philippines is delisted from the “high-risk” countries maintained by local forex operators.
The issue comes as the Philippines faces a separate corruption scandal involving billions of pesos in flood control funds, which has also affected investor confidence. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently reported that the controversy has erased trillions in market value from publicly listed companies within three weeks.
