by Jenny S. Santiago
VERA Files
Philippine coins in circulation run into billions–15.74 billion pieces to be exact. BSP says the huge quantity of coins is such that there are 193 coins for every Filipino. That is the ratio of coins to the present population of 92.2 million, excluding the 11 million overseas Filipinos.
This year, the BSP produced some 140 million more pieces of coins valued at about P1 billion.
Still, a coin shortage is being felt in some parts of the country, including Metro Manila.
People continue to be shortchanged by many department stores, groceries, drugstores, fastfood chains and retail stores because of the lack of coins, particularly the low-denominated 25-, 10-, five- and one-sentimo (centavo) coins.
But consumers have become so used to some business establishments of rounding off to the next higher value the prices of goods (e.g., P1.50 or P1.95 becomes P2) that many no longer ask for their loose change. Instances when the prices are rounded off to the lower value are very rare.
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Yes, I do not like it when they give me candies instead of the exact change.
This is an interesting insight:
“…some business establishments of rounding off to the next higher value the prices of goods (e.g., P1.50 or P1.95 becomes P2)”.
This is coin highway robbery. Plus plus plus the coins and a big business establishment gets additional thousands, maybe even millions of pesos a year. Harang!
An oversupply of coins in jueteng areas. Hmmnnn….even the BSP know where pero kunwari hindi mahuli-huli ang mga lordies.
Economics basics, from Mareng Winnie.
If the intrinsic value of the metal – copper used for wires, etc., silver, used for silverware, jewelry, etc., is higher than its value as coins, then the coins will disappear, because people will hoard them and melt them. That, as Becky says (# 1) is what is happening.
This is hornbook knowledge in economics, that it makes one wonder why this faux pas even occurred. Even if we had economic dumbkopfs at the monetary board (Bunye et al), there would still be the career people who would actually advise and implement Central Bank actions.
Too much mediocrity has invaded our government. And it is exacerbated by a very forgiving Chief Executive who seems to not want to demand excellence from his subordinates (Romulo et al).
Comments posted in my Facebook wall:
William Sabellano Lee: Pinupuslit ang mga coins natin papuntang Hongkong,hindi ko alam kung ano ang gagawin nila dito.
ラジ 再生: coins are melted when they reach HK then converted as HKcoins and used in MTR as tokens their transport system like our LRT.
Desiree Guasch: what i know is that the swimming pool in the Pineda mansion is full of coins jajaja
In a “popular” fast food restaurant:
Cashier : Sir ok lang kung kulang ng 50 cents sa sukli niyo?
Me : Eh ok lang ba kung sa susunod na kumain ako dito, ako naman ang may kulang ng 50 cents?
Cashier : ( sniuklian nalang ako ng sobra pero nakasimangot ) 😛
Orlando Roncesvalles:
“Here’s a solution: demonetize the coins less than P1. And I’m sure BSP already knows how to mint coins whose metal content is worth much less than the face value. Think of all the effort saved no longer to have to carry around the small-denomination coins. Of course demonetization means there is a sensible deadline to turn them in to BSP for higher denomination money – like one year.
What’s that coin with a hole in the middle?
Gawing plastic na lang ang mga coins and they will not disappear.
If you walk the streets, you will probably find 25, 10, 5 centavo coins on the pavement. When a funeral procession passes other vehicles, people throw coins at the cortegé. Around my house, you can find small coins in all the altars, especially inside the Santo Niño bag that He is holding.
It was discovered that old coins have been disappearing and found to be smuggled out to China – whose exponential growth in metal requirements beats any industrial economy elsewhere. The big guns in Australia’s mining sector have all but been serving the needs of China exclusively, it’s top 2 giant miners (BHP and Rio Tinto) have recently merged some of its operations for the Chinese requirements.
The door-to-door buyers from Pampanga and Bulacan (for jewelry production) of Martial Law-era one peso pay P300 a piece, for it is from pure silver. Starting 4-5 years back, BSP has added steel into their mints some are wondering why some new 10-peso coins (and some other denominations) are now magnetic they think it’s fake.
This is a gimongous problem for BSP since the material value alone of every coin in circulation far outweighs its face value; every coin made is a loss to the treasury.
Tongue, I didn’t know that martial law 1-peso coins were silver. Are there still some in circulation? I collect vintage silver items and would like to have one or two.
Btw, would you know the weight of the 1-peso coin? I wonder what the silver content is, eg., 800, 925, 999? Thanks…
oops, that would be 800/1000, etc…
I used to import copper bars for electrical equipment from 50-100 tons per shipment. C1100BB 1/2 hard is the technical spec for copper bars 99.9999+% purity that is acceptable to international quality standards for electrical equipment.
In the 90s, my scrap copper would fetch around P75 per kilo, today, it’s around P275 for the junk dealers but P400 if it’s the ammo/bullet refillers that buy them.
For coins (approx. 6 grams for the 0.25), around 90% is copper and around 10% is nickel. It is the nickel therefore, that makes the material value expensive.
The smaller coins are either tin-plated copper or copper plated zinc to keep the costs down.
No wonder, it’s the nickel mines that are very aggressive these days in Mindoro and Mindanao.
For Silver, 92.5% is the appropriate purity for jewelry, so it must be 92.5.
Although I still encounter these “buyers” from time to time, I think it is more a ploy to get their sellers to bring out more expensive items like broken gold jewelry, gold dentures, or real vintage coins, than really buying these “silver” peso coins. I doubt that they just discovered this recently. They’d approach you with, “Boss, yung Piso mong 1972-1974 bayaran ko nang P300”.
Plus, I wouldn’t expect the wizards in Marcos’ gov’t to allow such overvalued coins in circulation. Maybe, during Aquino’s time. Lol.
Oh… ok, thanks, Tongue!