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1 Peso
| Issuer | Commonwealth of the Philippines, Bureau of Health - Culion Leper Colony |
|---|---|
| Year | 1942 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Plain unprinted ground with typewritten text in English arranged in a central block. The upper portion carries the issuing authority in capital letters across multiple lines. The denomination "ONE PESO" appears centred, flanked by colons as decorative separators. Three manuscript signatures appear in the lower portion with their respective titles — Disbursing Officer C.L.C., Chairman E.C.C., and Acting Chief C.L.C. — alongside the serial number 16605 printed twice at lower left and lower right. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | This Certifies That The COMMONWEALTH OF THE PHILIPPINES BUREAU OF HEALTH CULION LEPER COLONY Is Obligated to Pay the Bearer :::::::- ONE PESO -::::::: In Legal Tender Currency Disb. Off., C.L.C. Actg. Chief, C.L.C. Chairman, E.C.C. 16605 |
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| Comments |
Culion, in the Calamian Islands of Palawan, housed one of the largest leprosy colonies in the world — at its peak in the 1920s, over 5,000 patients were confined there under a policy of mandatory segregation enforced by the American colonial administration. The colony operated its own internal currency specifically to prevent Philippine pesos from leaving the island and potentially entering general circulation. This series continued under the Commonwealth government, and the 1942 date places it squarely in the Japanese invasion year — an extraordinary moment for any bureaucratic institution to be issuing its own scrip.
Whether this issue actually circulated among patients during the occupation, or was printed just before the collapse of Commonwealth authority, remains genuinely unclear. The colony itself continued to function under Japanese control.