Respect the peso

Many decades ago, the Central Bank (before BSP) launched a campaign to “Respect the centavo.” The centavo was a coin that people chose to ignore.

- BOO CHANCO

The coin was often simply thrown away. Some prefer the hard candies supermarket cashiers give. I remember paying a jeepney driver 10 one-centavo coins for my 10-centavo fare and the driver just threw the coins away.

As a kid just learning about money, I was confused by the driver’s reaction to my coins. Apparently, the Central Bank was also perplexed by this lack of respect. It is costing them more than one centavo to mint the coin.

So, they launched a campaign to urge the public to “respect the centavo.” But they soon gave up and stopped circulating the one-centavo coin. It was beyond respect.

These days, we need a serious campaign to urge our officials to respect the peso... our tax peso. It really hurts deeply to learn that they are calling the hard-earned pesos we pay in taxes as basura.

In any case, those pesos won't stay pesos for long. Those ill-gotten pesos are quickly exchanged for dollars. They don’t trust the peso to store value. Since they have private jets and high government positions, transporting oodles of cash to Hong Kong shouldn’t be a problem.

The lower-level crooks at the district engineer level also have no desire to keep those bundles of peso bills too long. They quickly gamble away hundreds of millions worth of our tax pesos at casinos. Or splurge on high-end cars from their friendly neighborhood smuggler.

Congressmen are the most disrespectful of our tax pesos. When they have private meetings, wines costing a thousand US dollars and up are said to flow freely.

Catered food must be costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of pesos every day.