Counterfeit P500 bills for sale

There’s talk that counterfeit P500 bills are now being sold at close to 50-percent discount around the South Harbor area. That means a retailer which has been given a P1,000 bill for purchases worth, say, P200, would have actually generated, uhm, sales of P450 after giving the customer a fake P500 plus three P100 bills as change. For his part, the customer would have received only P300 in real money.

And then, there are the fake P100 bills. The current ones look and feel like the real thing except that the watermark or the "invisible" picture of the country’s first president after World War II, Manuel Roxas, is crudely done. These days, the counterfeit P100 bills are being inadvertently passed on to consumers by even well-established retail outlets which check only P500 and P1,000 bills as possible fakes.

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Did you know 1: The recently renewed endorsement contract of TV talk show host Kris Aquino is costing the makers of the Leonardo-brand of bags an estimated P4 million.

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Did you know 2: Now that it is mango harvest time, the going farmgate price is P150 per tiklis or a basket of 25 kilos. That translates to P6 a kilo, which, of course, is padded up several times over when it reaches the markets of Metro Manila.

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Did you know 3: Trust International Paper Corp. president and chief executive officer Tomas Apacible is putting up a power plant in Mabalacat, Pampanga (with the blessings of Mayor Marino Morales) in an effort to keep its power costs down (a major problem currently being faced by competitor, Paper Industries Corporation of the Philippines).

As power plants go, the investment per megawatt averages at P1 million. Tipco, which has a 10-percent market share of the newsprint business, is initially thinking of a P15-million investment.

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Asia United Bank headed by Abraham Co has an interesting way to handle remittances even in areas not covered by its branch network.

A medium-sized bank, AUB, which is majority owned by Jacinto Ng, has tied up with the sales people of another Jack Ng company, Republic Biscuit Co. Here’s how it works.

An overseas Filipino worker sends the money through an AUB correspondent bank in the city where he/she is working. After it is notified, AUB sends a text message to the OFW’s beneficiary and another message to the Rebisco salesman nearest the home of the OFW beneficiary.

The Rebsico salesman, who also carries money from sales to retail outlets, detours to the home of the OFW beneficiary during the same day and advances the remittance money after both he and the OFW beneficiary show their respective text messages and the necessary IDs.

Both AUB and Rebisco then reconcile their accounts at the end of the day.

By the way, most OFW beneficiaries would rather get their money at the bank rather than delivered to their home. Here’s why. The courier expects a balato or tip and, with everybody in the neighborhood knowing that the family has just received money from abroad, relatives and friends also expect to share in the largesse.