Mindanaotoday.com | BSP warns persons ruining bank notes
By: URIEL QUILINGUING
CAGAYAN DE ORO – A Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) official on Friday, July 28, reechoed earlier warnings that willful destruction of paper and minted bank notes are punishable by law.
Hermogenes A. Buenaflor Jr., BSP Mindanao senior bank officer, in a “BSP Piso Caravan” activity at SM Downtown Premier mall, urged residents to handle paper money and minted notes with care.
Banknotes, classified as unfit and mutilated are crumpled, faded, discolored, soiled, torn, charred or decayed, stained, and punctured were replaced by BSP Cagayan de Oro Branch personnel. Oro Bankers Association members assisted through the “BSP Piso Caravan” booths in the mall.
Mutilation includes the use of staple wires to attach something to the paper money–a campaign practice once a sample ballot and a political flier are surreptitiously given to voters before they cast their votes.
Traditionally, paper money is also stapled on the bride’s gown or groom’s apparel during a wedding dance. And recently, adhesives are used to attach money to one another to form a bouquet of paper money on graduation day.
What makes paper money unfit includes those with markings, excessive folding, cutting, tearing or perforating, burning, or smeared with ink or chemical. These are punishable acts, under Presidential Decree No. 247.
P.D. No. 247 prohibits defacement, mutilation, tearing, burning or destruction of bank notes and coins. Penalties include fine of not more than P20 thousand and/or imprisonment of not more than five years.
This, however, is not the first time; the BSP has been replacing unfit and mutilated bank notes regularly through government and private backs in the past, but these stopped during the pandemic, according to BSP Cagayan de Oro Branch officer-in-charge Divina Salve A. Labitad.
“Now, it’s about branding which is to be known as BSP Piso Caravan,” Labitad said and the activity is being held nationwide without any targeted volume of money in circulation that needs to be replaced.
As of June 2021, about 4.3 billion pieces of notes, valued at P1.8 trillion, and 36 billion pieces of coins, valued at P49.7 billion, are in circulation.
The withdrawal of unfit and mutilated currencies is part of BSP’s “Clean Note and Coin Policy.” These are properly disposed to ensure that these are not recirculated, through shredding, crushing, and briquetting.
Maria Kathelina Olea, BSP Mindanao senior research specialist, said BSP Piso Caravan is not only intended for currency exchange of unfit and mutilated legal tender, but also include learning sessions. Topics include digital literacy, online banking, coin recirculation, fraud and scams, and financial literacy.
The next day, July 29, BSP Piso Caravan also went to SM Uptown mall, Cagayan de Oro for the same purpose.
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