¡SupereXtraordinarisimo!: The Philippine Peso (Currency)

Countries where the Peso is being use. (Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Mexico, The Philippines, Uruguay)

The word Peso (meaning weight in Spanish) was the name of a coin that originated in Spain and became of immense importance internationally. Peso is now the name of the monetary unit of several former Spanish colonies in Latin America and the Philippines. Countries that used to use the Peso are Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El salvador, Guatemala, Hoduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela.

The Philippine Peso

A 100-peso note from the English Series, which was introduced in 1951 and was replaced by the Pilipino Series in 1969.

The peso (sign: ₱; code: PHP) is the currency of the Philippines. It is subdivided into 100 centavos (Spanish) or sentimo (Filipino). Before 1967, the language used on the banknotes and coins was English and so "peso" was the name used. The language was then changed to Pilipino (the name of the Filipino language then) and so the currency as written on the banknotes and coins is piso.

The peso is usually denoted by the symbol "(₱)". This symbol was added to the Unicode standard in version 3.2 and is assigned U+20B1 (₱). The symbol can be accessed through some word processors by typing in "20b1" and then pressing the Alt and X buttons simultaneously. Other ways of writing the Philippine Peso sign are "PHP", "PhP", "P", or "P" (strike-through uppercase P), which is still the most common method, since as of 2010 the Unicode Peso sign is not known to be supported by major and/or cross-platform fonts.

The coins are minted at the Security Plant Complex. Banknotes, passports, seaman's identification record books, land titles, checks, sweepstakes tickets, official ballots, official election returns, passbooks, postal money orders, revenue stamps, government bonds and other government documents are printed in the Security Plant Complex or the National Printing Office.

The Philippine peso derived from the Spanish silver coin Real de a Ocho or Spanish dollar, in wide circulation in the Americas and South-East Asia during the 17th and 18th centuries, through its use in the Spanish colonies and even in the US and Canada.

The Philippine peso was established on May 1, 1852, when the Banco Español-Filipino de Isabel II (now the Bank of the Philippine Islands) introduced notes denominated in pesos fuertes ("strong pesos", written as "PF"). Until October 17, 1854, when a royal decree confirmed Banco Español-Filipino's by-laws, the notes were in limited circulation and were usually used for bank transactions. The peso replaced the real at a rate of 8 reales = 1 peso. Until 1886, the peso circulated alongside Mexican coins, some of which were still denominated in reales and escudos (worth 2 pesos). Coin production commenced in 1861 and, in 1864, the Philippines decimalized, dividing the peso into 100 centimos de peso. The peso was equal to 226⁄7 grains of gold.

In 1886, Philippine colonial authorities started the gradual phase-out of all Mexican coins in circulation in the Philippines, citing that Mexican coins were by then of lesser value than the coins produced in Manila. But just as in the case of the Mexican dollars, the Philippine unit was based on silver, unlike in the case of the USA and Canada were a gold standard operated. As such, following the great silver devaluation of 1873, the Philippine unit devalued in parallel with the Mexican unit, and by the end of the 19th century, the Philippine unit was worth 50 cents in relation to the US dollar.