The Philippine peso is derived from the Spanish peso or
pieces of eight brought over in large quantities from
Spanish America by the
Manila galleons of the period from the 16th century to the 19th. From the same Spanish peso or dollar is derived the various pesos of Spanish America, the dollars of the
US and
Hong Kong, as well as the
Chinese yuan and the
Japanese yen.
Pre-colonial coinage , a type of coin used by the pre-colonial peoples of the archipelago Pre-colonial trade between tribes of what is now the Philippines and with traders from the neighboring islands was conducted through
barter. The inconvenience of barter, however, later led to the use of some objects as a medium of exchange.
Gold, which was plentiful in many parts of the islands, invariably found its way into these objects that included the
Piloncitos, small bead-like gold bits considered by the local numismatists as the earliest coin of the ancient peoples of the Philippines, and gold barter rings. The original silver currency unit was the rupya or rupiah, brought over by trade with India and Indonesia. Two native
Tagalog words for money which survive today in Filipino were
salapi and possibly
pera.
Salapi is thought to be from
isa (one) +
rupya which would become
lapia when adapted to Tagalog. Alternately, it could be from
Arabic asrafi (a gold coin, see Persian
ashrafi) or
sarf (money, money exchange).
Pera is thought to be from Malay
perak (silver), which also has a direct cognate or adaptation in Tagalog/Filipino as
pilak. Alternately, it could be from 10 and 5
céntimo coins of the
Spanish peseta, known as the
perra gorda and
perra chica.
Spanish colonial period peso imported from
Spanish America from 1726 to 1770 s coin imported from
Spanish America and valued at 16 silver pesos The
Spanish dollar, or silver peso (worth eight reales), was first introduced by the
Magellan expedition of 1521 and brought in large quantities after the 1565 conquest of the Philippines by
Miguel López de Legazpi. The local salapi continued under Spanish rule as a toston or half-peso coin. Additionally, Spanish gold onzas or eight-
escudo coins were also introduced with identical weight to the
Spanish dollar but valued at 16 silver pesos. An 1857 decree requiring the keeping of accounts in pesos and céntimos (worth of a peso) was of little help to the situation given the existence of copper cuartos worth of a peso. While pre-1877 Mexican pesos were reminted into Philippine 10-, 20- and 50-céntimo coins until the 1890s, these coins were continuously smuggled in connivance with Customs officials due to their higher fiat value in the Philippines. After 1898 the United States colonial administration repealed this "fictitious gold standard" in favor of the unlimited importation of
Mexican pesos, and the Philippine peso became a
silver standard currency with its value dropping to half a gold peso. Concurrent with these events is the establishment of the Casa de Moneda de Manila in the Philippines in 1857, the mintage starting 1861 of gold 1, 2 and 4 peso coins according to Spanish standards (the 4-peso coin being 6.766 grams of 0.875 gold), and the mintage starting 1864 of fractional 50-, 20- and 10-céntimo silver coins also according to Spanish standards (with 100 céntimos containing 25.96 grams of 0.900 silver; later lowered to 0.835 silver in 1881). In 1897 Spain introduced 1-peso silver coins with the bust of King
Alfonso XIII, as well as 5- and 10-
céntimo de peseta coins for circulation in the Philippines as 1- and 2-
céntimo de peso coins. The Spanish-Filipino peso remained in circulation and were legal tender in the islands until 1904, when the American authorities demonetized them in favor of the new US-Philippine peso. The first paper money circulated in the Philippines was the
Philippine peso fuerte issued in 1851 by the country's first bank, the
El Banco Español Filipino de Isabel II. Convertible to either silver pesos or gold onzas, its volume of 1,800,000 pesos was small relative to about 40,000,000 silver pesos in circulation at the end of the 19th century. A fanciful etymology for the term
pera holds that it was inspired by the
Carlist Wars where Queen
Isabel II was supposedly called
La Perra (The Bitch) by her detractors, and thus coins bearing the image of Isabel II were supposedly called
perras, which became
pera. A less outlandish Spanish origin, if the term is indeed derived from Spanish, could be the Spanish coins of 10 and 5
céntimos de peseta (valued locally at 2 and 1
céntimos de peso) which were nicknamed
perra gorda and
perra chica, where the "bitch" or female dog is a sarcastic reference to the Spanish lion. Arguments against either theory are that the coins bearing the face of Isabel II were nicknamed
Isabelinas and that the
perra coins were only introduced to the Philippines in 1897.
Revolutionary Period Asserting its independence after the
Philippine Declaration of Independence on June 12, 1898, the
República Filipina (Philippine Republic) under General
Emilio Aguinaldo issued its own coins and paper currency backed by the country's natural resources. The coins were the first to use the name
centavo instead of
céntimo for the subdivision of the peso. The island of
Panay also issued revolutionary coinage. After Aguinaldo's capture by American forces in
Palanan, Isabela on March 23, 1901, the revolutionary peso ceased to exist.
American Colonial Period in 1918. After the United States took control of the Philippines, the
United States Congress passed the Philippine Coinage Act of 1903, established the unit of currency to be a theoretical gold peso (not coined) consisting of 12.9 grains of gold 0.900 fine (0.0241875 XAU). This unit was equivalent to exactly half the value of a U.S. dollar. Its peg to gold was maintained until the gold content of the U.S. dollar was reduced in 1934. Its peg of
₱2 to the U.S. dollar was maintained until independence in 1946. The act provided for the coinage and issuance of Philippine silver pesos substantially of the weight and fineness as the Mexican peso, which should be of the value of 50 cents gold and redeemable in gold at the insular treasury, and which was intended to be the sole circulating medium among the people. The act also provided for the coinage of subsidiary and minor coins and for the issuance of silver certificates in denominations of not less than 2 nor more than 10 pesos (maximum denomination increased to 500 pesos from 1905). It also provided for the creation of a gold-standard fund to maintain the parity of the coins so authorized to be issued and authorized the insular government to issue temporary certificates of indebtedness bearing interest at a rate not to exceed 4 percent per annum, payable not more than one year from date of issue, to an amount which should not at any one time exceed 10 million dollars or 20 million pesos. The US territorial administration also issued
Culion leper colony coinage between 1913 and 1930.
Commonwealth Period When the Philippines became a
U.S. Commonwealth in 1935, the
coat of arms of the Philippine Commonwealth was adopted and replaced the arms of the U.S. Territories on the reverse of coins while the obverse remained unchanged. This seal is composed of a much smaller eagle with its wings pointed up, perched over a shield with peaked corners, above a scroll reading "Commonwealth of the Philippines". It is a much busier pattern, and widely considered less attractive.
World War II In 1942, at the height of the resistance against the Japanese invasion in
Corregidor island, US-Philippine forces managed to ship off to
Australia most of the gold and significant assets held in reserve by Manila's banks, but they had to discard an estimated ₱ 15 million worth of silver pesos into the sea off Caballo Bay rather than surrender it to the Japanese. After the war these assets would be returned to Philippine banks, and most of the discarded pesos would be recovered but in badly corroded condition. The
Japanese occupiers of the Philippines then introduced
fiat notes for use in the country.
Emergency circulating notes (also termed "guerrilla pesos") were also issued by banks and local governments, using crude inks and materials, which were redeemable in silver pesos after the end of the war. The
puppet state under
José P. Laurel outlawed possession of guerrilla currency and declared a monopoly on the issuance of money and anyone found to possess guerrilla notes could be arrested or even executed. Because of the fiat nature of the currency, the Philippine economy felt the effects of
hyperinflation. Combined U.S. and Philippine Commonwealth military forces including recognized guerrilla units continued printing Philippine pesos, so that, from October 1944 to September 1945, all earlier issues except for the emergency guerrilla notes were considered illegal and were no longer legal tender.
Independence and the Central Bank of the Philippines, 1949–1993 Republic Act No. 265 created the
Central Bank of the Philippines (now the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas) on January 3, 1949, in which was vested the power of administering the banking and credit system of the country. Under the act, all powers in the printing and mintage of Philippine currency were vested in the CBP, taking away the rights of the banks such as
Bank of the Philippine Islands and the
Philippine National Bank to issue currency. The Philippines faced various post-war problems due to the slow recovery of agricultural production, trade deficits due to the need to import needed goods, and high inflation due to the lack of goods. The CBP embarked on a fixed exchange system during the 1950s in which the peso's official exchange rate was maintained at ₱2 per U.S. dollar by various measures to control and conserve the country's international reserves. This system, combined with other "Filipino First" efforts to curtail importations, helped reshape the country's import patterns and improve the balance of payments. Such restrictions, however, gave rise to a black market in which dollars routinely traded at above ₱3 per dollar. The CBP's allocation system which rationed a limited supply of dollars at ₱2 per dollar to purchase priority imports was exploited by parties with political connections. Higher black market exchange rates drove remittances and foreign investments away from official channels. By 1962, the task of maintaining the old ₱2 per dollar parity while defending available reserves had become untenable under the new
Diosdado Macapagal administration, opening up a new
decontrol era from 1962 to 1970 in which foreign exchange restrictions were dismantled and a new free-market exchange rate of ₱3.90 per dollar was adopted from 1965. This move helped balance foreign exchange supply versus demand and greatly boosted foreign investment inflows and international reserves. However, a weak manufacturing base that could not capture market share in (mostly imported) consumer goods meant that devaluation only fueled inflation, and by the time the decontrol era ended in 1970 another devaluation to ₱6.43 per dollar was needed. In 1967, coinage adopted Filipino language terminology instead of English, banknotes following suit in 1969. Thus the currency names appearing on coinage and banknotes changed from the English
centavo and
peso to the Filipino
sentimo and
piso. However,
centavo is more commonly used by Filipinos in everyday speech. The CBP's final era from 1970 until the BSP's reestablishment in 1993 involved a "managed float system" with no more fixed parity commitments versus the dollar. The CBP only committed to maintain orderly foreign exchange market conditions and to reduce short-term
volatility. Difficulties continued throughout the 1970s and 1980s in managing inflation and keeping exchange rates stable, and this was complicated further by the CBP lacking independence in government, especially when the latter incurred fiscal shortfalls. The worst episode occurred when a confidence crisis in the
Ferdinand Marcos administration triggered a capital flight among investors between August 1983 and February 1986, nearly doubling the exchange rate from ₱11 to ₱20 per dollar and also doubling the prices of goods.
Reorganization to the new Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Positive political and economic developments in the 1990s paved the way for further
economic liberalization and an opportunity to unburden the central bank of objectives that are inconsistent with keeping inflation stable. The New Central Bank Act (Republic Act No 7653) of June 14, 1993 replaces the old CBP with a new
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas mandated explicitly to maintain price stability, and enjoying fiscal and administrative autonomy to insulate it from government interference. This, along with the further liberalization of various foreign exchange regulations, puts the Philippine peso on a fully floating exchange rate system. The market decides on the level in which the peso trades versus foreign currencies based on the BSP's ability to maintain a stable inflation rate on goods and services as well as sufficient international reserves to fund exports. Black market exchange rates as seen in the past are now nonexistent since official markets now reflect underlying supply and demand. The Philippine peso has since traded versus the U.S. dollar in a range of ₱24–46 from 1993 to 1999, ₱40–56 from 2000 to 2009, and ₱40–54 from 2010 to 2019. The previous 1903–1934 definition of a peso as 12.9 grains of 0.9 gold (or 0.0241875 XAU) is now worth ₱4,206.088 based on gold prices as of April 2025. ==Names for different denominations==