HISTORY OF THE PHILIPPINE MONEY

Long before the country we live in was known as the Philippines, people were
already exchanging goods and services with each other and people from neighbouring
areas. They did so through ‘barter trade,’ which means that for instance someone would
trade a cow or chicken directly for someone else’s knife or hammer. The impracticality
of this barter trading led people to assign certain set values to mediums of exchange.
As gold was plentiful in the Philippines at the time and relatively easy to turn into
desired shapes, bead-and-ring-shaped pieces of gold quickly became the method of
payment, effectively functioning as coins. Like all nations, the Philippines first main form
of trade was through direct barter exchange.
With the Spanish entered the country in 1521, their silver coin the ‘teston’ became
the main Filipino currency, serving as the most important method of trade between the
Spanish and Filipinos. During the Spanish regime, the Philippines possessed a melting
pot of currencies, which included Alfonsino pesos and Mexican pesos, among quite a
number of others. The peso fuerte (or the ‘strong peso’) would become the dominant
currency in the later stage of the Spanish colonial period, being the first Filipino currency
issued on paper money, and being issued by the country’s first national bank. After
reaching independence from the Spanish in 1898, the Philippines started producing its
own currency—both coins and paper money—which replaced the peso fuerte. During this
time, the term ‘centavo’ was introduced to name the subdivision of peso coins into cents.
After 1901, when the Americans started to take control of the Philippines, this
‘revolutionary peso’ was yet again replaced.

In 1967, the language on all types of peso money got changed to Tagalog.
Although in everyday writing the spelling of ‘peso’ still reigns supreme, peso bills since
the 1960s display the word ‘piso.’ Likewise, though coins since that time display the word
‘sentimo,’ ‘centavo’ remains of course the more commonly used term. Nowadays, all
Philippine currency has been named to its Tagalog roots, and primarily feature national
heroes, landmarks, and natural resources. Still, with this act of localization, the Philippine
peso has been brought a step closer to our national identity. We will see what the future
brings us with regards to developments around the peso.