Trivia: How many soldiers on 50 peso bill?

While the fifty peso banknote from the New Design Series (NDS) is still in wide circulation, let's challenge ourselves to a little trivia:

How many soldiers can you spot on the obverse (front) of the 50 peso bill (NDS)?
(clue: there are more than 0 of them)

2010 BSP Statistics on Coins and Banknotes

In their 2010 Annual Report, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas gives us a glimpse on the volume of Philippine currency notes printed and coins minted during the past year.

Banknotes

870.05 million pieces printed
  • 213.85 million pieces with the signature of President Benigno Aquino III (launched 25 Nov 2010)
  • 10.0 million pieces of New Generation Banknotes (released 17 Dec 2010)

Currency retirement

  • 603.3 million pieces (worth P35.7 billion) notes retired through currency disintegrator

  • 443.0 million pieces (worth P204.5 billion) worn-out currency notes retired

2,956.8 million pieces (worth P746.7 billion) total banknotes in circulation as of 31 Dec 2010

Coins

582.02 million pieces minted

16,422.7 million pieces (worth P19.0 billion) total coins in circulation as of 31 Dec 2010

Looking at the figures of banknotes and coins in circulation, we can derive that if the population of the Philippines was around 94 million at the end of 2010 and all cash were distributed equally, each Filipino should have, P7,944 in banknotes and P202 in coins. Of course this does not include other forms of money such as bank deposits. Also, the average value of a banknote is P253 and coins are worth P1.16/piece on the average. Interesting!