Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III has questioned the “arbitrary and hasty” changes that the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has been making in the monetary design of the country’s bank notes and peso coins, the latest of which is the removal of the images of Filipino World War II heroes in the P1,000 bill.
Pimentel said: “There is a need to inquire into the reason for the BSP’s rather arbitrary and hasty changes in our monetary design for the purpose of crafting legislation on this matter.”
The senator has filed Senate Resolution No. 962 seeking to “direct the proper Senate committee to conduct an investigation, in aid of legislation, as to the frequent and apparently purposeless changes in the design of our Philippine Peso coins and notes initiated by the BSP.”
In seeking the investigation, Pimentel cited the “’massive redesign” of Philippine bank notes in 2009 from the New Design Series (NDS) launched in 1985 to the New Generation Currency Series (NGCS) in 2010.
The NDS bank notes were demonitized from commercial use in 2015.
Again in 2018, Pimentel said the BSP introduced the New Generation Currency Coin Series which overhauled all the coinage designs being used in the country.
He also noted the 2019 announcement of the BSP that it was redesigning the new five-peso coin “due to the obvious public confusion it caused” with the new one-peso coin.
He likewise said that in July 2019, the BSP replaced the P20 bank note with a bi-metallic new 20-peso coin, which is slightly bigger than the 10-peso coin and was circulated to the public in early to mid-2021.
Last year, the BSP also introduced a substantial redesign of the P1,000-peso bank note that the latter touted as having the most security features and hence more difficult to counterfeit.
Pimentel also included in his resolution the December 11, 2021 announcement of the BSP on the “complete overhaul” of the P1,000-peso bank note by replacing the image of World War II heroes Chief Justice Jose Abad Santos, General Vicente Lim and Josefa Llanes Escoda with an image of the Philippine eagle.
The lawmaker also cited instances of misspelling, such as the misspelling of the name of former president Gloria Arroyo and the scientific name of the Philippine Eagle, as well as the complaints regarding the confusing similarities in sizes, designs and colors of coins and notes.
