Remember the back of the old PHP500 bill that featured a little boy giving a flower to a soldier?
That illustration came from a photo taken during the 1986 People Power Revolution that toppled the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. — and the boy in question now works as a nurse in the United States.
Angelo Gutierrez — the boy featured in the old bill — had quite the historical photo-op after he met Vice President Leni Robredo during the latter’s recent trip to New York.
Gutierrez reportedly chanced upon Robredo and her daughters at Central Park days after her youngest, Jillian, graduated from New York University.
“Bumped into the Vice President of the Philippines,” Gutierrez casually wrote on Facebook. “Thank you for being so approachable and kind! God bless you!”
An old professor of Gutierrez’s shared his post and confirmed that his former student was indeed the child in the PHP500 bill that also features Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. — whose assassination sparked the 1986 revolution.
Journalist and former Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) Undersecretary Manuel L. Quezon III said that the image of Gutierrez as a young boy was featured in the book People Power: The Philippine Revolution of 1986.
Meanwhile, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP; Central Bank of the Philippines) said that the banknote, which was demonetized after 2017, paid homage to Aquino as an icon of democracy.
“The yellow 500-piso note substantiates the purpose of honoring Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Jr., whose wife, Corazon Aquino, made use of the yellow as her political color. Ninoy was the main driving force behind the People Power Revolution of 1986, some three years after his death in 1983; to the right of the banknote, there are two popular quotes from Aquino: ‘Faith in our people and faith in God,’ and ‘The Filipino is worth dying for,’ under which is signed his nickname, ‘Ninoy,’” BSP wrote.
