The Philippines is poised to break the Guinness World Record for the longest line of coins after civic groups collected 25-centavo coins enough to make a chain of more than 70 kilometers.
Organizers laid out Wednesday more than 3.5 million pieces of coins over 6,000 square meters of space fronting Quirino Grandstand in Manila with the intention of beating the world record of 64 km held by the United States.
The event was called, “Barya ng mga Bayani [Coins of Heroes]: The Power of Small Change.”
Organizers gathered 25-centavos coins from the public for several weeks to ensure that the Philippines would beat the US record.
The Kabayanihan Foundation, the officers’ club of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and the BSP Employees Association, said the event had three objectives, the first of which was to promote awareness among Filipinos of the importance of coins.
Artificial shortage
The central bank stressed the importance of coins amid the “artificial shortage of coins” in the country.
Many people just keep their coins in piggy banks or drawers and failing to circulate them, cause an artificial shortage, according to BSP officials and employees.
The shortage is blamed for the predicament sellers find themselves in when giving change to customers who pay for a purchase using peso bills.
P1 to mint coin
The central bank said that among the coins, the 25 centavo-coin was suffering the most acute shortage.
The shortage is costly for the government because the central bank mints coins more than the necessary volume. It noted that minting one piece of 25-centavo coin costs P1.
“There is a perception that there is a coin shortage, but in reality there is none. We have lots of coins. All we have to do is to recirculate the coins that we keep,” said Raul Montero, president of the BSP Employees Association.
The second objective of the event was to start raising funds to help build classrooms for public elementary schools. All the coins gathered from the event served as donations for classroom building, organizers said.
They said the coins collected from the event were worth more than P875,000, enough to build three classrooms.
Alex Lacson, chairman emeritus of the Kabayanihan Foundation, told reporters that although the amount could finance just three classrooms, the event was a good start for collecting donations for building classrooms.
Lacson said that with the success of the event, organizers may consider making it an annual activity.
Perhaps next year, he said, the organizers would gather one-peso coins.
“If we gather P1 coins, then we can generate a much bigger amount to help fund classrooms,” he said.
Lacson cited estimates showing that the country lacked at least 66,000 classrooms.
The third objective was to unify Filipinos. Organizers said working to break a world record was a good means to promote cooperation and unity among Filipinos. Michelle V. Remo