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The official currency of Philippines is the Philippine peso (Filipino:
piso). Philippine peso is divided into 100 centavos due to its use of decimal
system. The ISO 4217 code of peso is "PHP".The unit of currency of
peso originated in Spain and is presently used by several former Spanish Colonies
including Philippines. Originally the peso coin weighed 27 grams and was of
92 per cent pure silver.
Peso is often used interchangeably to include the historic Spanish eight reales
coin as the pesos were of similar weight and diameter to the eight reales coin.
During the ancient civilization, trade among the early Filipinos and with traders
from the neighboring islands was conducted through barter. Gradually the inconvenience
of barter led to the use of some objects as a medium of exchange. Since gold
was abundant in many parts of Philippines it was obviously included in the piloncitos,
small bead-like gold bits acknowledged by the local numismatists as the earliest
coin of the ancient Filipinos.
However it was during the Spanish colonial rule that Mexican peso along with
other currencies were in circulation. The Philippine peso on paper came into
existence on May 1, 1852.The other nations were peso is considered as the official
currency along with Philippines are Argentina, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico and Uruguay.
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