BSP urges public to check banknotes to see if these are genuine

January 8, 2019

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) in a statement on Tuesday advises the public to carefully check their Philippine banknotes for identifiable security features to see if they are genuine.

On February 13 2018, the Navotas City police arrested two counterfeiters who tried to pay a fish vendor using a counterfeit P 1,000 banknote at the San Roque public market.

The fish vendor, who doubted the authenticity of the banknote, immediately called the attention of barangay officials and the Navotas City police. Upon inspection of the personal belongings of the suspects, counterfeit banknotes amounting to P58,000 were discovered, seized and turned over to the BSP. 

These banknotes were the subject of Facebook posts concerning the circulation of counterfeit banknotes. The images were initially posted by a private netizen on February 14 2018, and reposted on the Facebook page for SSS inquiries on 30 May 2018. Since then, the posts have been the subject of comments from netizens on the various ways to detect fake banknotes. 

On May 8 2018, the Regional Trial Court of Navotas City found the two accused guilty under Article 167 of the Revised Penal Code, or the criminal act of counterfeiting and knowingly putting forged banknotes into circulation, and sentenced them imprisonment of two years, four months and one day as minimum penalty to six years as maximum penalty. 

Since 2010, the BSP has arrested and filed criminal cases against 133 counterfeiters in coordination with other law enforcement agencies. This led to the confiscation of various counterfeit currencies, i.e. Iraqi dinar, Japanese yen, Malaysian ringgit, US dollar, and several equipment and paraphernalia used for counterfeiting. DMS