Baryang Magiliw - A Review of Philippine Coins

When I was younger, money was very different - the money that I could get my hands on, anyway. The five and ten peso coins did not exist, which was a problem, because bills were much much more fragile than coins. In the hands of a child, the bills were practically wooden ships in a perfect storm of destruction. Banko central probably takes note of the number of five and ten peso bills that get destroyed every year, and 3 quarters of those would be attributed to "left in the pockets of a gradeschool student's shorts and then machine washed" and "crumpled beyond recognition by grubby little oilstained hands"

On the other (grubby) hand, we had the two peso coin. It was awesome. Like, the pinnacle of modern currencies. Hot-blooded and bare chested Bonifacio solo'ed that coin, until he moved up a notched and started bunking with Apolinario Mabini in the 10 peso bill, and then later in the 10 peso coin. I'd say it's tantamount to a barkada dick move, hanging out with a friend with a higher face value just because. Well, I don't blame Andres Bonifacio hanging out with Mabini. Who'd he bunk up with? Aguinaldo? History says that guy had him shot, twice probably. Putting them in the same coin would be like a spanish-era Tom and Jerry commemorative. Funny, but morbid.

haters gonna hate


The two peso coin was decagonal in shape. What was that? You thought it was octagonal? Well, welcome to the club. It was heavy, and its shaped gave it sharp angles. If you didn't consider how much candy it could give you, you could think it was designed to be a child's perfect throwing weapon, like a minor denomination ninja star or something.

Actually the same can be said about most of our coins before. They were heavy, and pitched at the right force,

they can do some mighty damage. They're twice as light now, probably adjusted so on humanitarian grounds and on

the pleas of the thousands of coin-flinging victims all over the country. I remember before when the newer, lighter coins came out, people went batshit insane about how the coins are so small we'd start losing them. We probably did, but the Department of Jeans, Shorts, and Paldas is happy to report that the number of busted pockets per capita has drastically gone down after a bag of coins stopped being as heavy as .50 rifle rounds.

Thinking about it, the weight probably has something to do with our perceived value of two pesos. Back then, like when you went christmas carolling and the house gave you a 2 peso coin instead of having the dog chase you for two blocks, you felt like you had a lot on hand, and that's because you DID. The coin is heavy, large, and you'd see Bonifacio's stern face staring at you from his decagonal frame, as though he's alive. "Where the fuck is the rest of my body," he'd probably say. And that made it feel even more important.

But no. Nowadays, you get two one peso coins with Rizal's face in it. Rizal in case you didn't know, is a richboy kid who barely spoke Tagalog, loved everything Spanish, went against independence and the revolution. If Rizal were alive today, he'd be that crazy hipster who makes Starbucks his second home and  keeps on advocating we should have stayed an American colony. And you get two lousy coins with his face on instead of the 2 peso coin.

I say, let's remove the one peso coin instead and reinstate the 2 peso coin, remove Bonifacio from the Baryang Walang Hagdan and place him back where he belongs. What can 1 peso buy nowadays anyway? Then just so we don't look like heartless bastards, let's bunk Rizal with Aguinaldo, and maybe he'll have him shot again, which might not be such a bad thing because hey, free holiday.

Let's just hope he does it sometime after Easter Sunday, holiday economics and all.