THE CENTRAL bank is pushing for legislation against coin hoarding following the recent seizure of P50 million worth of coins in Quezon City.
“The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is advocating the passage of a law on the hoarding of an extremely large volume of coins, as the central bank believes that the criminalization of this activity reinforces continuing efforts to maintain and protect the integrity of Philippine currency,” it said in a statement on Sunday.
“Coin hoarding results in the inefficient circulation of coins and prevents their primary use as medium of exchange. It hampers the efficient flow of transactions and causes an artificial shortage, which is disruptive to the financial system,” it added.
The National Bureau of Investigation, in partnership with the Bureau of Customs, the Philippine Coast Guard, and the BSP, seized a stockpile of P1 coins amounting to about P50 million from a warehouse on Oct. 1.
Samples from the pile are still being tested by the central bank to gauge their authenticity. The central bank said the coins are from various design series.
“Under its Coin Recirculation Program, the BSP encourages the public to refrain from unnecessarily accumulating coins, and instead use them to pay for goods and services or deposit them in banks,” the BSP said.
The central bank released new designs for coins in 2018, all made from silver in varying sizes and features. In 2019, the enhanced version of the P5 coin was introduced to make it easier to distinguish from the P10 coin. — Luz Wendy T. Noble