The campaign season is on and in a few days’ time, money’s velocity (the rate at which money changes hands as it is spent on goods and services) will be revving up, what with candidates for local positions hiring people to help in their campaign. And in the week before the election, they will also be “hiring” their watchers to guard their votes in precincts. Frankly, I think this is just a sanitized way of buying votes; they “hire” tens if not hundreds of watchers but the truth is only 2 watchers per candidate are allowed. According to the Omnibus Election Code (Sec. 48, Art. VI), the two watchers serve alternately. So why should candidates be hiring almost the whole voting population to serve as watchers?

That’s a lot of money infused into the local economy, fake bills included. I wonder if there is any correlation between the election season and the proliferation of fake bills? These (upper 500 and 1000 bills in the photos) were found in the possession of a man (Metro Manila resident) who was apprehended at the Sto. Domingo public market in the last week of March. If you don’t look close enough, they look almost like the real thing (the bills in the lower half of the photos are the genuine ones). So, if you find yourself in the country or in Ilocandia this summer season, beware. If you’ve been out of the country for long, you may not be too familiar with the look and feel of genuine peso bills. For more information on how to spot fake bills, click here.

Filed under: April 2007, Local Politics, Local scene | You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.