r/WhatIfPinas

If this happened suddenly, what is a plausible timeline of events?

The country used to have ₱5 and ₱10 bills in circulation, and these denominations were once much more valuable than they are today.

Eventually, they were replaced by coins.

But what if the country had kept them as banknotes instead?

Would it have affected the value of money, inflation, everyday purchases....

How would people view these denominations?

What would it mean if ₱5 and ₱10 were still commonly used as bills today instead of coins?

Would love to know your thoughts on this.

What if instead of sending noncombatant troops in Vietnam like the real life PHILCAG, what if the Philippines sent active combat troops in the Vietnam War to supplement the additional manpower for the US?

President Lyndon Johnson did asked for troops from the Philippines but Marcos refused. Instead he sent the noncombatant Philcag for civic duties and psyops but what if Marcos agreed and in exchange the Philippines will receive additional financial assistance from the United States

So its 1967, the Philippines began to replace the earlier noncombatant PHILCAG with active combat troops. To sell the war in the Philippines, Marcos would promote it as a “Crusade against Communism” like the earlier Philippine expeditionary troops in Korea. Young men will be drafted. For Manila draftees they will train in Fort Bonifacio then sent to Fort Magsaysay and depart from Clark and Subic and arrive in Vietnam.

As expected the far left and the student activist will denounce the draft and like the United States, colleges will have draft evadess and burnings

The came 1968, the Tet Offensive will also shock the Filipinos with the sudden VC and NVA attacks im South Vietnam. The media will show the reality of war. More bodies are coming back as more young men of draft age are sent to Vietnam. To ensure the draft is fair, a draft lottery is introduced. Everynight TV and radio stations will show the draft lotter and every family would watch the birthday announce

Yet since this is the Philippines, theres still unfairness in the draft. the rich still managed to dodged the draft due to influence. Powerful local warlords would not send their goons to be drafted in a foreign war. In the end many of those who were sent to Vietnam are from the poor

Also the war will send officers who would use the experience in Vietnam to accelerate their later career

But Marcos would only show the victories of the war and sell in his 1969 reelection with a promise of ending the war

In 1970, the First Quarter Storm exploded and this time the Vietnam War and the Draft adds fuel to the already tense situation. In 1971 the UP Diliman Commune will include burning draft cards and shelter draft dodgers with the call to bring the boys home.

Later as the Vietnam War ends, Marcos would bring the soldiers home and call them heroes but these veterans who fought the Vietcong will be used for Martial Law

Martial Law will still be declared and this time the state will hunt for draft dodgers as traitors. The former training grounds for the draft are now used as detention centers. The officers who were sent to Vietnam like Orlando Dulay now used their brutality on the Vietnamese to their own people. But Marcos would call the returning veterans heroes where in 1973 he can claim they “won” the Vietnam War

bur since this is Martial Law, any negative news regarding the Vietnam War are censored. antiwar news is suppressed

in brief the BSP is said to have a "single mandate" of just keeping inflation down. not all central banks around the world are limited to this because other countries have central banks that have a 2nd mandate of creating jobs & growth, via development financing—if I understand this right this involves things like deliberate devaluation of currency including printing money (and most Pinoys would be like "the horror! over our 115 million dead bodies!") as well as extensive borrowing to fund large-scale projects like infrastructure & local industry investment.

this wasn't always the case because before 1993 the old Central Bank of the Philippines (founded 1949) had a "dual mandate" like the US Federal Reserve (ironic it's the bank of the US colonisers who imposed the gold standard on PH as a colony in the first place but more on that later); it could engage in development spending, infra. & industry loans &c. ... but since Miguel Cuaderno, its founding head, was so much "more austerity-obsessed than the Americans" he & nearly every central bank governor since (and their teams) focused near-exclusively on the inflation & just followed suit. it finally became their sole legal policy mandate in 1993 ... & they're still doing it today.

AI says this "single mandate" is now more common to central banks around the world today. it might be part of the "neoliberal wave" since the 1980s & it's common in Latin America & even the European Central Bank. in PH it's conventional wisdom because we're all inflation-&-strong-peso-obsessed; per the "jukebox economists" & industrial policy supporters like Leloy Claudio, Stephen Cuunjieng &c. amongst others (with much paraphrasing) it's a possible reason why PH can't develop as fast or as much as other Asian economies, which do allow & aren't scared of depreciation or deficit spending, though minsan via separate development banks or state corporations (in fairness tayo may DBP naman & ADB does help out so there's that?).

one theory BSP was barred from funding developmental projects by borrowing or devaluing is because we're so afraid of taking risks (and its main risks are inflation & corruption) & a lot of this is likely due to economic trauma from the Marcos Sr dictatorship—but Leloy suggests it's even older & a US-colonial original (as in Phil-Am-war-old; also see the early 1920s PNB scandal which was largely due to a post-WWI global economic crisis as much as colonial corruption if not more so), long before US & related agencies like WB & IMF really started pushing neoliberal reforms only in the 1970s-80s. just like with counterinsurgency, militarised policing, red-tagging, disinformation & everything else, yet again PH is a colonial lab rat for bad stuff the US later pushes around the world I guess.

so tl;dr = what if we "make BSP spend again" by amending the BSP charter / RA 7653 / 1993 New Central Bank law to allow it to go beyond just "managing inflation" & get back into the "growth, employment & development mandate"? including developmental borrowing & (shudder) peso devaluation where needed.

based on a post on r/todayIlearnedPH. (and yes I put it in "out of the box" because it's so unheard-of that even suggesting the BSP depreciate the peso is like saying Rizal & Magsaysay weren't perfect & were problematic ganung kalala lol).

sources:

RA 7653 - New Central Bank Act

Claudio, L. (2025). "The profligate colonial: how the US exported austerity to the Philippines". Cornell Press.

Heydarian, R. & Claudio, L. (2025 Jul 21). "Claudio: Corruption did not make Philippines poor (Full Episode) | The View From Manila". OneNews.ph. Youtube.

Fausto, R. F. & Claudio, L. (2026 Jul 15). " CORRUPTION IS NOT THE PROBLEM?". FQ Mom Channel. Youtube.