There is an old adage that goes if nothing is wrong with something then it would be best to not repair, modify, or tinker with it at all. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” for those who are not familiar with it.
This seems to be a timely saying today, what with the new P1,000 bill design being promoted.
The new design will remove the faces of Filipino World War II heroes Jose Abad Santos, Vicente Lim, and Josefa Llanes Escoda and instead will have the Philippine eagle.
So why the new design? Central Bank said the new design is meant to promote the flora and fauna of the Philippines. Really, now? We don’t see this making much of a difference. Most of us weren’t even familiar with those whose faces appeared on the P1,000 bill until it became an issue.
Except for collectors, a new feature on a bill isn’t likely to be noticed by people who will be more interested in exchanging it for something else.
Is there a more sinister reason to redesign the bill? Some people actually think so. They propose this administration is so hell-bent on leaving its mark, it is actually beginning with the P1,000 bill but will soon move on to redesigning the P500 bill because it features personalities belonging to a dynasty inimical to it.
Farfetched, yes, but you cannot blame tongues for wagging.
But let’s put that conspiracy theory aside, if there is no valid reason to redesign the bill then why do so? Why spend resources for printing new bills, resources that we might need elsewhere?
Here is a good example of something that should have been better left alone; the P5 coins. There wasn’t anything wrong with the old “yellow” P5 coins, you could distinguish them immediately just by looking at them.
But somehow someone decided to make new P5 coins in the same color and almost the same size as the P1 coins and now people have to check twice before forking them over, especially those who have poor eyesight and difficulty picking out tiny features or feeling for those tiny ridges on P1 coins.
Don’t get us wrong, we have nothing against the Philippine eagle. But unless there is a really pressing need to promote it --and again we say putting it on a bill is a really bad way to do so-- there is no urgent need to put out a new P1,000 bill.