After being blamed, Church vows to work with BSP to ease coin 'shortage'

Catholic Church officials on Thursday said they will speed up the deposit of coins from church collections to bring these back to circulation, after the central bank said earlier this week that the Church and the illegal numbers game 'jueteng' are partly to blame for the artificial shortage of coins circulating in the country. "Kausap na rin ang BSP nina Cardinal Rosales kung maaari bilisan ang pagdeposito ng mga barya (Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales in particular is talking with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to find ways to speed up the process of depositing of coins)," Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP)'s public affairs unit head Bishop Deogracias Iñiguez Jr. said in an interview on dzXL radio. Earlier this week, BSP Deputy Governor Diwa Gunigundo said the Church and jueteng are partly to blame for an artificial shortage of coins. Gunigundo said that while there are enough coins, there is an uneven distribution of them, thus creating an artificial shortage. He said the “problem" was a result of certain factors such as Mass collections, “jueteng" bets and the Filipino practice of saving coins. According to Guinigundo, the coins collected during Masses and as jueteng bets are not immediately turned over to banks for deposit or exchange. The Manila Archdiocese under Rosales has encouraged the faithful to give 25-centavo coins to the poor through the program “Pondo ng Pinoy." - with a report by Nikka Corsino/LBG/RSJ, GMANews.TV