Catalog
500 Piso Seal type 5, Without security thread
| Issuer | Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas |
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| Year | 1998-2001 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Shape | Rectangular |
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| Obverse description | At left centre, a front-facing portrait vignette of Benigno Aquino Jr. is set against a guilloche underprint. The national flag appears at centre, flanked by the bank seal at right centre and a dove in flight at far right. A typewriter motif at lower right alludes to Aquino's career as a journalist, with the inscriptions 'THE FILIPINO IS WORTH DYING FOR' and 'FAITH IN OUR PEOPLE AND FAITH IN GOD' rendered in intaglio. |
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| Variants | P#185a - ND & 1998 signatures: Ramos & Singson P#185b - [1998*] & 1999 signatures: Estrada & Singson * not confirmed P#185c - 1999, [2000*] & [2001**] signatures: Estrada & Buenaventura * not confirmed ** not existing with these |
| Comments |
The 500 Piso series printed at the BSP's own Security Plant Complex represents a period when the central bank was consolidating domestic production after decades of reliance on foreign security printers. This particular iteration — Seal type 5, without security thread — predates the enhanced security upgrades that became standard on later Philippine currency runs. The absence of a thread in a high-denomination note issued through the late 1990s is notable, given that regional counterfeiting pressure was significant in the wake of the 1997 Asian financial crisis.
The signature data tells a fragmented story. The Ramos/Singson pairing confirms 1998 ND issues; the Estrada/Buenaventura combination for 2000 and 2001 dates remains unverified, with no confirmed examples documented — those date-signature combinations may exist only as anticipated issues that were never released or were superseded by updated security versions before printing.