Much ado over the ₱1,000 bill

By Herbert Vego

I have yet to receive a new one-thousand-peso polymer bank note.  Had I gotten one, I would have spent it immediately because I don’t have a long wallet where to keep it unfolded.

If you were as anxious as I was, keep your cool; it is “no longer true” that the plastic bill is not even worth a centavo when folded. Somebody from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) was probably joking when he warned against folding the new ₱1,000 note.

A netizen went viral after complaining that an SM mall had refused to accept her slightly folded new money.

“Only when extremely folded” is how the BSP now tries to calm down both the spenders and receivers of the polymer – a kind of plastic which is said to be five times stronger than its paper predecessor.

And now the BSP admits that, as in the case of paper bills, banks would be willing to replace the mutilated polymer bills which merchants could no longer accept. Well and good.

I have polymer bills from Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. Some of them have been “stolen” as souvenirs by relatives.

But there’s more to the new ₱1,000 note than the above trivia. Take for example a commentary by local broadcaster Henry Lumawag the other night, where he lambasted the government’s choice of an angry eagle replacing the “three heroes” – – Jose Abad Santos, Vicente Lim and Josefa Llanes Escoda — on the note’s obverse face. The trio embodies Filipino resistance against the Japanese occupation in 1941.

“You deposit the money in the bank!” he boomed to sanitize a native curse. “Daw manusik,” referring to the pecking stance of the Philippine eagle.

Henry questioned the BSP’s decision to replace the drawn faces of the three World War II heroes with that of the eagle. You see, Abad Santos was the Chief Justice who was executed by the colonial Japanese soldiers for refusing to collaborate.

Vicente Lim was a Filipino general in the resistance movement who was executed by the Japanese in Bilibid Prison along with 50 other Filipino fighters.

Josefa Llanes Escoda founded the Girl Scouts of the Philippines and campaigned for women’s right of suffrage. She covertly provided personal and medical supplies to hostages in various camps. The Japanese military imprisoned and executed her in Fort Santiago.

Without specifying the brain behind the replacement of the heroes with the Philippine eagle, the BSP simply referred to the bird as “our symbol of clear vision, freedom, and strength.”

Sad to say, the Philippine eagle is just the beginning of the end of Filipino heroes immortalized on Philippine money. Forthcoming polymer bills of different denominations, to quote a BSP statement “will also focus on the country’s rich flora and fauna.”

Not a few netizens fear that the unwritten message of that “focus” is the government’s intention to also abolish the faces of martyred Senator Ninoy Aquino and his wife, the late President Cory Cojuangco, from the ₱500 bill.

This leads us to a bill that has been filed in the House of Representatives by a “fan” of BBM’s dictator dad, Negros Oriental Rep. Arnolfo Teves. It proposes to rename the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) to Ferdinand E. Marcos International Airport (FEMIA).

OMG, save us from people who think they may revise history because it’s just “tsismis”!

-oOo-

EMPOWERING ILOILO CITY’S PUBLIC MARKETS

IN November last year, Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas lauded MORE Electric and Power Corp. (MORE Power) for “lower electricity bills and improved utility services in just two years of handling power distribution services in the city.”

To this day, MORE Power charges the lowest electricity rates at an average of ₱7.40 per kilowatt-hour, which is much lower than the Manila Electric Company’s P10. 46/kWh.

Certainly, it would draw more heavy power users to do business here.  For example, SM Prime Holdings, Inc. proposed to redevelop the Iloilo Central Market and the Iloilo Terminal Market via public-private partnership (PPP).

It’s now a done deal. To quote Atty. Quintin Magsico Jr., vice chairman of the Iloilo City PPP Selection Committee, “We have verified the capability of SM Prime to comply with contractual obligations with local government units.”

The participation of SM in the redevelopment of the city’s premier public markets as soon as possible ensures market goers of the “three Cs” which means “clean, convenient and competitive.”