P1,000 bill not a history book

By Alex P. Vidal

“Money is my military, each dollar a soldier. I never send my money into battle unprepared and undefended. I send it to conquer and take currency prisoner and bring it back to me.”—Kevin O’Leary

HERE we go again.

Much ado about nothing amid the pandemic?

Instead of giving priority to helping each other enlighten family members, friends, neighbors about the need to urgently inoculate and ward off the Omicron Variant in the fastest and most practical means, some of us have become fixated on the rather mundane and complex issues that can’t even save a single life if COVID-19 will further unleash its wrath in 2022.

Everyone now wants to join the fray in putting in the guillotine the heads of those responsible for removing the portraits of the three Filipino World War II heroes from the design of the new Philippine banknotes and replacing them with the Philippine eagle.

While we are trying to wiggle out from the deadly pandemic, why can’t we just leave the matter on which image or images should be printed on the P1,000 bill to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and the National Historical Institute?

We have experts and artists tasked to tackle this issue while our health authorities prioritize the vaccination.

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The entire hullabaloo that started when Bayan Muna partylist Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate questioned the removal from the P1,000 bill of Filipino heroes Chief Justice Jose Abad Santos, Brig. Gen. Vicente Lim and Girl Scouts of the Philippines founder Josefa Llanes Escoda, who were killed during the Japanese occupation in the Philippines, has become a national frenzy.

There’s no logic in making a mountain out of a molehill about the banknote’s images.

Peso bills aren’t history books. We don’t forget our war heroes if they are removed from any currency or social being.

We know, recognize and are proud of them even during our elementary days because we were taught to honor and pay tribute to their heroism.

There are many ways to remember and place them in the portals of history aside from the P1,000 bill.

The Americans own the world’s strongest banknotes and economy but don’t give a damn if their dollar bills don’t print war heroes – except former presidents and some economists who contributed in the growth and expansion of federal banking and economic system.

United States currency notes now in production bear the following portraits: George Washington on the $1 bill, Thomas Jefferson on the $2 bill, Abraham Lincoln on the $5 bill, Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill, Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, Ulysses S. Grant on the $50 bill, and Benjamin Franklin on the $100 bill.

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Although there are facts about US money that will make us jaw drop, Americans don’t quarrel or debate on national TV about the need to retain or replace the 13 symbols composed of 13 arrows, 13 olive branch leaves, 13 olive fruits, 13 stars above the eagle, 13 steps of the pyramid, and 13 bars on the shield of their $1 bill.

Both the “annuit cœptis” and “e pluribus unum” have 13 letters.

And Americans don’t run berserk and protest about these strange facts as long as their economy is exciting and life is good in general.

If there is a valid issue to be addressed, it’s the correction of what the congressman described as the “glaring errors” in the bill’s new design where the scientific name of the Philippine eagle was misspelled as Pithecophaga “jefforyi” instead of Pithecophaga “jefferyi.”

To dispute and debate non-stop on national TV whether the three images of the war heroes should be retained, and the Philippine eagle be removed can be a waste of time at this crucial moment when the pandemic has continued to pose a serious threat to the national survival economically.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two dailies in Iloilo.—Ed)