Missing Our High-Value Centavo

By Herbert Vego

“RESPECT the centavo” used to be a government slogan aimed at encouraging the people to value our centavo coins.

It does not make sense now that one centavo buys nothing.

Blame it on inflation, which means a general increase in prices and fall of the buying power of money.

Judging from experience, if prices have remained constant – say, counting from the year 1960 when the minimum daily wage was PHP4 – the Philippines would have been an ideal place to live in.

Today’s minimum wage earners earn much more than those of that decade. If you are as old as I am, you will remember that a thousand pesos was a fortune which could feed a family of six for six months.

In 1960, a copper centavo coin (one inch in diameter) could buy a piece of wrapped candy; five centavos, two pieces of pan de sal; ten centavos, a bottle of soft drink; and a peso, a bus fare from San Jose, Antique to Iloilo City.

I was 10 years young in 1960 when our parents took us four kids to Quezon City for a two-month summer vacation. Our two-hundred-peso baon took care of the house rental, food and shopping expenses.

One peso at that time was stronger than today’s 100 pesos. In fact, the rental rate for the two-storey apartment we were occupying on 23-A Dapitan St. was only PHP60 per month.

At that time, the minimum wage nationwide was four pesos a day or PHP120 per month.

In 1967 when I was pursuing college education in Manila, the cost of living was still within the reach of bread winners earning PHP180 per month.  While studying, I worked as a mail sorter at the Bureau of Post’s Foreign Mails Division in the then Manila International Airport at PHP6 per day.

In the 1970s, even when President Ferdinand Marcos had already declared martial law, the economy was still relatively strong because price increases were infrequent and would be met with salary increases. With a wife and a baby boy, I made both ends meet as a freelance journalist in Manila.

I abandoned Metro Manila life in 1981 to edit a new weekly newspaper in Iloilo City.

The so-called PUs (small Minica taxi cabs) were still charging a flat rate of ten pesos for an inter-city ride.

Times have changed. A wage earner making PHP15,000 a month can no longer cope with galloping prices.

Stagnant income has forced Juan dela Cruz to decrease consumption. He would buy a half kilo of meat instead of a kilo. He would cancel family vacation. He would no longer go to the movie houses.

No wonder more and more professionals fly abroad for a higher-paying job, leaving behind spouses and children.

I remember a friend who used to thrive in manufacturing children’s clothes for export to Guam. Her business has closed due to cut-throat competition from Chinese manufacturers.

“Those were the days my friend,” so goes an old song, “we’d thought would never end.”

-oOo-

‘IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO CHASE A DREAM’

With that in mind, our friend Jonathan Cabrera struggled to obtain a college degree. Today, at 48, he holds a diploma for the course Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, Major in Marketing Management, at the La Consolacion College, Bacolod City.

He did not have to enroll for that course because he had already earned his place in the sun as founder/CEO of TODO Media and spokesman of MORE Electric and Power Corp. But he had an elusive dream that must come true.

Looking back to his teenage years after finishing high school, he had tried to enroll for a Mass Communication degree but failed the entrance exam.

He therefore opted to study for two years in a technical-vocational school while working with the media industry but failed to get his diploma for failure to complete payment of his tuition.

The school folded up after a surge of a flood in Iloilo City, and that also eroded his chance of having a diploma.

And then one day in 2023, he learned about the Expanded Tertiary Education Equivalency and Accreditation Program (ETEEAP) being offered by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), which would enable working professionals to pursue a college degree.

To make his long story short, he completed the Business Administration course at the La Consolacion College, thus fulfilling his elusive dream at age 48 — a diploma.

“Salamat sa aking mag-ina, LinLy at Simon Angelo, na hindi bumitaw sa panalangin at suporta,” he commented on his Facebook page.

Congratulations, JonCab!