The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas on Thursday confirmed that mechanical and technical error caused the printing of a number of faceless P100 bills that netizens criticized on social media.
Bangko Sentral managing director for currency subsector Carlyn Pangilinan said in a news briefing the incident was an “isolated case.” She said only 33 pieces of the faceless banknotes were misprinted.
“The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas immediately initiated an investigation on whether these bills originated from the BSP. Having found these to be issued by the BSP, an inquiry was made into the printing-machine error that caused it,” said Pangilinan.
She said the error was caused by a glitch in one of the rulers of the printing machines. She said the 33 defective banknotes were what the Bangko Sentral traced and documented.
She said of the 33 defective bills, 19 pieces were already collected or returned to the BSP. She said the faceless banknotes were still legal tenders, but because some of the needed security features were not there, holders of the defective bills should return them to the BSP.
Pangilinan said the Bangko Sentral previously used manual quality control for printed banknotes and none of this incident happened. She said the BSP was now using machine quality control “that is why maybe some pieces of defective banknotes pass through unnoticed.”
Last week, a Facebook user posted a picture of faceless P100 bills that she withdrew from an ATM of a Bank of the Philippine Islands branch in Eastwood City in Quezon City.
Pangilinan said these incidents were isolated cases experienced by a few individuals.
She said millions of banknotes were printed by the BSP on a daily basis. In the manufacturing and production process, she said, there were cases when machine errors cause “rare” misprints. In this case, the BSP identified the mechanical cause of the erroneous printing.
“The BSP encourages the individuals affected to turn over the misprinted ones. Those individuals may, during office hours, either at its head office in Manila or its security plant complex in Quezon City, visit the BSP. After the verification of the bills’ authenticity, the BSP shall replace the same,” she said.
The Bangko Sentral assured the public that it continued to observe a procedure of quality assurance for the millions of banknotes it was printing and circulating as legal tender.
Meanwhile, Pangilinan said the public should not be confused on the features between the P5 New Generation Currency coin released this month and the existing P1 coin currently in circulation.
She said the new P5 coin is heavier (7.4 grams), thicker (25-mm in diameter), and slightly larger than the P1 coin. The P5 coin’s sides are smooth while the P1 coin has ridges.
Pangilinan said the designs of the two coins are also different.