The Republic of the Philippines, an archipelago in the western Pacific 500 miles (805 km.) from the southeast coast of Asia, has an area of 115,830 sq. mi. (300,000 sq. km.) and a population of *64.9 million. Capital: Manila. Migration to the Philippines began about 30,000 years ago when land bridges connected the islands with Borneo and Sumatra. Ferdinand Magellan claimed the islands for Spain in 1521.
The first permanent settlement was established by Miguel de Legazpi at Cebu April 1565. Manila was established in 1572. A British expedition captured Manila and occupied the Spanish colony in October 1762, but returned it to Spain by the treaty of Paris, 1763. Spain held the Philippines despite growing Filipino nationalism until 1898 when they were ceded to the United States at the end of the Spanish-American War. The Philippines became a self-governing commonwealth under the United States in 1935, and attained independence as the Republic of the Philippines on July 4, 1946.
The peso (Filipino: piso) ( 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 Tagalog (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. Due to the lack of font support, the symbol is often substituted with a simple "P", a P with one horizontal line instead of two (available as the peseta sign, U+20A7 (₧), in some fonts), as "PHP", or "PhP".
The Philippine peso was established on May 1, 1852, when the Banco Español-Filipino de Isabel II a (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).
In 1967, the CBP adopted the Filipino language on its currency, using the name Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, and in 1969 introduced the "Pilipino Series" of notes in denominations of 1, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 piso. The "Ang Bagong Lipunan Series" was introduced in 1973 and included 2-peso notes. A radical change occurred in 1985, when the CBP issued the "New Design Series" with 500-piso notes introduced in 1987, 1000-peso notes (for the first time) in 1991 and 200-piso notes in 2002.
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 minted in Manila.
The coins are minted at the Security Plant Complex. Banknotes, passports, seaman's identification record books, land titles, checks, 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.
Source: Wikipedia, Krause Publication.
