Saving money is good – and everyone’s scrambling every year to have that as their New Year’s Resolution. But there are times when saving money is not so good, especially when you hold on to those bills when the government changes the currency and demonetizes that money! Ooooops.
Late in December 2018, a mom in Bicol discovered that her son Raymond, a person with disability (PWD), had been saving money. She found a total of Php38,000 from Raymond’s savings – and that would have been great, except that all the money was in the old currency and had long been demonetized by the Philippine government.
Raymond had saved up Php38,000 yet this money is now nothing more than just paper; it had no more value!
According to Raymond’s cousin, Karen Corro Habal, the family tried to plead at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to change the money, considering that its owner is a PWD; however, they were told that there really was nothing the agency could do about it. There had been no new extension to the deadline given by the agency to exchange the bills.
Taking pity on her PWD cousin and his family, Karen shared the story on social media in hopes that netizens could help her ask help from the authorities to consider changing Raymond’s money due to his situation.
She added that the money might be ‘just a little amount’ to many but it would actually be a big help to the family. Raymond is a PWD living with his mother who is already old and sick.
While a number of people quickly tagged civic-oriented shows such as “Raffy Tulfo in Action” and “Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho”, others had a faster way of helping the family: they offered to buy the demonetized bills!
This is tantamount to losing their money on the demonetized, now-useless bills but these people are willing to help the family. It’s more of a donation to the PWD guy who had spent years saving up for the future but had no idea the money would be valueless when he already needs the cash.
Karen would update her post, sharing the names of the people who helped the family get cash for the old bills.
Tynee Ruedas from a group of PWD advocates bought Php15,000 of the old bills while Ma. Klaudia Manabat bought Php5,000. Others also bought most of the money, sending around Php2,000 each.
As of press time, kindhearted netizens have purchased nearly Php30,500 of Raymond’s old bills. Isn’t that awesome?
While there’s very little chance the BSP would reconsider extending the deadline, it was great that the community came together to help this PWD and his family.
Image credits: Karen Corro Habal / Facebook