5 influencers face raps for defacing bills

MANILA, Philippines — Five social media influencers were charged before the Quezon City prosecutor’s office yesterday for allegedly defacing, mutilating, stapling and destroying currency notes.

Representatives from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ payments and currency investigation group and the police Anti-Cybercrime Group filed charges of destroying central bank notes and coins under Presidential Decree 247, unlawful use of means of publication and unlawful utterances under the Revised Penal Code and violation of Republic Act 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act against the suspects, who were only identified through their social media accounts.

Suspect @ForeignGerms tore a P20 bill in half as part of his social experiment. Another violator, CholoTV, stapled several banknotes as part of a basketball fun-shoot game.

On the other hand, @carlquion poked a hole into a P1,000 bill using a ballpen as part of a magic show.

Two more, @qyuarfheerzzchyam and @ekongyahoo.com, uploaded videos of them defacing currency notes.