“Of course polymer money lasts longer and is difficult to fake unlike paper money”
Having been out of town during much of the holiday season, my first encounter with the bank for the new year was to withdraw some cash for household needs last week.
It was the first time the bank gave me a bundle of purely polymer banknotes, the newly designed plastic bills.
Of course I read the announcement of the Bangko Sentral when it proudly unveiled its obra maestra, the new generation polymer peso banknotes, where the nation’s heroes and former presidents were replaced by flora and fauna, some of which were unrecognizable to most Filipinos.
The abaca farmers in Bicol, Southern Leyte and the few still remaining in Davao are complaining, “pati ba naman pera, pinagkait sa kanila?” It’s bad enough that Manila hemp, which all ships used in the previous century, has been universally replaced by plastic.
Abaca slippers and other handicrafts such as placemats from the sturdy fiber have been replaced by plastic as well.
The yen still uses paper money, made more durable by abaca fibers, but the country from which they import the abaca fibers has disdained its use.
The yellow-pinks are up in arms. Why remove Ninoy and Cory, along with all the other heroes and past presidents from the new generation notes? It was in 1986, right after the EDSA revolution, that Jobo Fernandez’ Central Bank unveiled the Ninoy yellow 500-peso bill.
Then Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, right after EDSA Dos, had her inauguration as “acting” president at the back of a new green 200-peso bill, with her father, Diosdado on the face.
That was a much reviled banknote, and the BSP printed less and less of it, until in the time of PNoy, they removed the back feature of GMA’s oath-taking at the EDSA shrine.
But where was Marcos the First? Nowhere, even as Osmena and Roxas were in the 50 and 100 peso bills? Why no Magsaysay, the beloved of the “masa?”
As a small boy growing up in San Pablo City, I remember small paper notes that had 10, 20 and 50-centavo denominations in red, green and violet colors, but that was when the peso was two to one US dollar.
(Editor’s note: From the 1940s post liberation to the early 1960s, the 10-centavo bill was light violet, the 20-centavo bill was light green, the 50-centavo bill was blue, which became later as green and bigger in size than the old blue but smaller than the one-peso bill with the mark half-peso. There was a one-peso bill in black, with Mabini as the hero with the Barasoain church photo on the back side, a two-peso bill with Jose Rizal as the hero and the landing of Magellan in Ccbu on the back side, a five-peso bill with Sergio Osmena and the mark Victory on the other side, and a 50-peso bill with the blood compact between Magellan and Lapu Lapu.)
Later, when Diosdado Macapagal “floated” the exchange rate and “de-controlled” the economy, the exchange rate became 3.20 to the dollar and under martial law, it slowly rose to 8 pesos to the US currency.
In the crisis of 1982-83, and after the murder of Ninoy at the tarmac, it spiraled all the way to 25 to the dollar.
Now it is 58 to the dollar, likely 59 months after Trump becomes POTUS, and 60 or more depending on how the Federal Reserve acts on interest rates.
Whether it is paper or polymer, what really matters to the Filipino is the peso’s purchasing power, which has been depreciating continuously, more so in the past two years, where rice used to be one peso per ganta (the wag-wag variety where a ganta or salop equaled 2.8 kilos) two generations ago.
When we went metric in the time of Marcos the First, we replaced the ganta to the kilo, at a price of 1.80 per kilo. It has now zoomed to 58, according to the Department of Agriculture.
But in the wet markets, 5 to 10percent broken rice is at least 60 pesos per kilo. And the 25 percent brokens, which NFA 10 years ago sold at 27 per kilo is nowhere to be found, because our import-dependent rice traders prefer to import the better varieties, where the margins are much better.
Some say that the Bangko Sentral decided to replace heroes and notables with flora and fauna because of the 500 peso Ninoy and Cory, while there is no Marcos the First, and it would be politically incorrect to now inaugurate a Marcos banknote. So, erase everybody else. Neat.
The polymer banknotes are imported, from Australia and the UK, and the East Avenue mint and printing plant established by Marcos the First, at the time state-of-the-art, is now idled. As in rice, food and practically everything else, imports replaced local.
Of course polymer money lasts longer and is difficult to fake unlike paper money. It is less susceptible to bacteria-formation. It does have advantages.
But there is another take to the shift.
Could it be that our politicians and their cohorts prefer plastic because they cannot deposit their hidden wealth in the banks, as that would lead to a paper trail in case they are investigated for plunder?
And paper money, hidden in rooms and vaults, could be eaten up by termites or “anay” while plastic is lighter, thinner, and termite-proof?
Pardon my mischievous mind.