P23.3 BILLION IN UNCHANGED OLD BILLS: BSP MUST DEFER TIMELINE BY ANOTHER 1-2 YEARS OR NOT DEMONETIZED AT ALL

Did you know that the U.S. doesn’t demonetize their old bills even if the new ones have more security features? There is even a law in the US prohibiting demonetization http://www.philstar.com/business/2015/12/13/1532033/demonetization-demonization). Then why is it that the Philippines’ Central Bank (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas or BSP) is demonetizing Philippine currency given its findings that up to date, Dec. 28, 2016, over P23.3 BILLION is still in circulation or hasn’t been replaced?

In retrospect, BSP launched its information drive to demonetize the previous design in 2014, wherein it was announced that 2015 will be the last year that it will be a legal tender and 2016 will be the year banks can change them. It seemed that it was
reasonable enough time for the public to have their hard-earned money changed, right? Wrong. Assuming that a few millions were destroyed or lost or damaged irreparably – over P2O BILLION isn’t an insignificant amount and it probably affects hundreds of thousands if not millions of unwitting victims to demonetization!

Apparently, a great number of our “kababayans” may still have huge sums of cash in jars or tin cans, which is not an unusual practice among older and/or rural folks who still consider keeping their hard-earned savings in cash at home. Obviously, the BSP’s information drive hasn’t reach everyone and may be considered less than a complete success. The BSP should defer the demonetization for at least another year or so and intensify yet its info drive until the figures are down to a few million pesos (still in circulation).