Philippines currency as one of the oldest in the region

The official Philippines currency is called the Philippine peso, which is known in local language as the 'piso'. For every one Philippine peso there will be 100 centavos since the decimal system is used here. In terms of ISO 4217 code, the currency of the country as 'PHP'. 'Peso' is used as the language before 1967 but this was changed after that time and the name 'piso' was then used. The term 'peso' that is used to refer to the currency of the country may be interchanged with the name peso that is used with other Latin American countries.

There was a time when the name peso will include the Spanish eight reales since the pesos were of similar weight and diameter. During the early formation of the country, coins and currencies as a whole were not used. This was the time when the early Filipinos were active in doing their trades with the neighboring islands. And with the absence of currencies that can be used for trading, barter was the norm. In the end, the practice of barter has proved to be inconvenient for the early Filipinos and some form of objects have been used as their medium of exchange.

And since gold is the most abundant material in the country, then the gold-based items were used and these are the basis for the materials used in making the first currencies of the country. It was during the time of the Spanish Colonial rule when the official currencies came into being, and on May 1, 1852 the Philippine peso on paper was first seen by the public. As mentioned it was not only the Philippines that make use of 'peso' as their official currency.

The lists of nations that make use of the 'peso' include;

. Argentina
. Colombia
. Cuba
. Mexico
. Uruguay

It was Banco Espanol-Filipino de Isabel II which is now known as the Bank of the Philippine Islands as the institution that issued the first Philippine notes, denominated in 'pesos fuertes'. The circulation of the currency lasted until 1886 and this peso circulated with other Mexican coins that are denominated in reales and escudos. The production of coins for use in the Philippines started again in 1861 and in 1864 divided one peso into 100 centimos de peso. During that time, the peso was equal to 22 6/7 grains of gold. By 1886, the colonial authorities in the country pushed for the gradual phase out of Mexican coins that are in circulation in the country.

If the current value of the gold will be taken into account, then the Philippine peso has lost almost 100 percent of its value- 99.9998 percent to be exact. The Philippine money supply as of October 2005 totaled to 569.2 billion pesos and this is roughly US$11.5 billion. The coins that are used currently in circulation are now minted at the Security Complex. The banknotes, the passports and other important identifications and government certificates are printed in the Security Plant Complex or called the National Printing Office.

The coins that are currently circulating in the Philippines are;

. 5 sentimo
. 10 sentimo
. 25 sentimo
. 1 piso
. 5 piso
. 10 piso

There are still smaller denominations that are below 1 piso but these coins are no longer popular and not in wide usage.

In terms of banknotes, the Philippine banknotes that are currently in circulation include the following;

. 20 piso
. 50 piso
. 100 piso
. 200 piso
. 500 piso
. 1000 piso

There was a time when there was a 5 piso banknote and 10 piso banknote in circulation and in wide use. These banknotes are legal tender but no longer printed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. The Philippines currency has its own share of issues. For example in 2005, a number of 100-peso notes carried the wrong spelling of the President's last name. Instead of the Arroyo as her last name on the banknotes, the banknotes carried the name 'Arrovo'. Some coins of the Philippines currency have been used for fraud too. By August 2006, it was known that the 1-peso coin has the same size as that of one UAE dirham coin. But the value of one peso Philippine coin is only equal to 0.07 dirham. And this leads to dispensing machine fraud in that country.