MANILA - (UPDATE) A "rare misprint" caused a "very minimal" amount of peso bills to be released with missing face designs, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said Thursday.

The error is "isolated" and holders of the defective bills are advised to exchange them for legal tender at central bank offices, said BSP managing director for currency management Carlyn Pangilinan told reporters.

A Facebook user earlier this week posted photos of four P100 bills without the face design, which said were withdrawn from a Bank of the Philippine Islands ATM. The post was shared 24,000 times.

"In this particular case, the BSP has identified the mechanical cause of the said erroneous printing. It has since be resolved," she said.

"Millions of banknotes are printed by the BSP on a daily basis. In the manufacturing and production process, there are cases where machine errors cause rare misprints," she added.

Pangilinan said the "faceless" bills should not cast doubt on the capacity of the BSP to print legal tender.

• 'Faceless' P100 bills isolated, under investigation: BSP

BPI meanwhile said it will work with the BSP to retrieve and replace the affected bills.

"Customers may go to our branches to have the faceless bills replaced, following standard BSP verification procedures," BPI said in a statement.