DID YOU KNOW…
...that for almost 250 years, the galleon trade between Manila and Acapulco in Mexico dominated the Philippine economy?
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…that Mexican cob coins were exchanged for the Oriental goods brought across the Pacific? (Among natives of the Philippines, these silver coins were dubbed hilis kalamay due to their odd shape.)
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…that the appearance of the first regularly published newspaper in the Philippines on August 8, 1811 coincided with the arrival of new coins from the newly independent Latin American states?
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…that to obscure the origin of the coins and discourage similar acts of insurrection, the Spanish colonial government superimposed its coat of arms on these coins and put the marking "Manila 1828"?