Market vendors, tricycle drivers short of P1 coins in Quezon City

by ABBIJAH C. DULNUAN
University of Santo Tomas Journalism program


QUEZON CITY—THE shortage of PhP1 coins has become a daily problem to the vendors of a small community market in Barangay Pag-asa.
The problem started almost two years ago but has only taken its toll this year.
Almost everyday, the vendors lose some of their profits because of giving discounts to their customers when they fall short of change.
To shun this problem without appearing stingy to her customers, Nora Vendicacion uses what she calls “utangan system”.
When she is short of change, Vendicacion asks her customers to retrieve it the next time he or she buys something from her.
Three stalls away from Vendicacion is Rabbie Penos’s stall. He gives out vetsin (monosodium glutamate) as a substitute for a PhP1 change.
If vegetable vendors lose some of their profit because of the unavailability of the PhP1 coins, so do the tricycle drivers who ply the PhP18 route from the market to Shoemart North Edsa.
A joke among the drivers has it that all the missing PhP1 coins are the ones being used in a game show of one of the most popular television networks in the country.
The said game show requires contestants to scoop as much coins as they can from ten bowls of P1 coins and place them in a weighing scale which determines how much they can win.
Just last September 1, a local newspaper reported that the Northern Mindanao office of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has confirmed that there is a shortage of PhP10, and 25 and 10 cent coins in Cagayan de Oro City.
Prior to the May 10 national elections, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas appealed to the public to re-circulate the coins.
As of May 31, 2010, a BSP report on bank notes and coins bared there are about 15.74 billion pieces of coins (valued at PhP17.09 billion) have been issued. The ratio of coins to the population is 170 coins per Filipino, BSP said.
Although the BSP report wrote that there is no shortage of low-denomination coins. Out of the 15.74 billion pieces of coins, 89 percent of them are low-denominated coins.
The same BSP report adds that an artificial shortage of coins may occur since Filipinos keep these in piggy banks, vaults, and wallets and no re-circulating them.
The BSP’s Cash Department even reported that a recent investigation done in Cebu City showed that there is an increased demand for PhP1 coins because these are being used in “Automated Tubig Machines” and coin games.
Smugglers apparently eyed the PhP1 coin due to increased global demand for copper and nickel, the report said.
Brgy. Pag-asa’s vendors and the tricycle drivers speculate that secret transportations abroad of the PhP1 coins are the reason for the coin shortage.
Two years ago, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), Bureau of Customs (BoC), and Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group (PASG) intercepted a huge shipment of PhP1 coins that was bound for Korea.
The intercepted shipment recovered 17.9 tons of PhP1 coins, estimated to be worth PhP3 million, which are being targeted to manufacture computer parts (particularly microchips), tokens, or bullets.
The monetary authority has also outsourced coin production to an American and a Canadian coin production companies last June to augment the production by the BSP’s mint plant in East Avenue, Quezon City.


Abbijah Dulnuan, a third year Journalism student of UST, submitted this story for her Newspaper Practice and Management class.