The New Generation Philippine Banknotes

Its been a while since our beloved Peso had a makeover, and yes, it sure is a welcome change. The new designs were very well received by the public. The changes were striking and it sure brought the Peso at par with other world currencies in terms of design and security features. The colors were much better as well. I'm not really sure if they would be of the same size (dimensions) with the old bills, but I sure hope that they would be similar to that of the Australian and Hongkong dollar.

There were notable changes on the bills. The reverse side of the notes now feature some of our most beautiful tourist spots and unique Philippine fauna. I especially love the tarsier and blue-naped parrot on the 200 and 500 Peso bills. However, there were some geographical errors on the notes. There were some issues in the accuracy of the location of the Puerto Princesa Subterranean Park and of the Tubbataha Reef on the 1000 and 500 Peso bills. Also, Batanes seems to have been cut off from the Philippine map on the reverse side of all the new bills.

The Bangko Sentral has also decided to let go of some of the more important historical depictions in the new designs. Gone is the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo oath taking image on the 200 Peso note and images of the EDSA People Power I on the reverse side of the 500 Peso note.

I am very excited to get my hands on these new bank notes. And yes, I'd also start keeping some of the old notes for posterity. To our Central Bank, just one small wish: please start producing more paper money and less of the coins currently in circulation. Also, please reintroduce the 1, 5 and 10 Peso bills into the market. I'm pretty sure you'd be doing the Filipino nation a big favor.

For complete details on these new designs, do check the official Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas website: http://www.bsp.gov.ph/publications/media.asp?id=2471