10 Pesos Circulating note, Blue seal

The Philippine National Bank was chartered in 1916 partly to break the stranglehold of foreign commercial banks — primarily British and American — over agricultural credit in the islands. These circulating notes were a direct instrument of that policy, funding crop loans to Filipino farmers who had previously been locked out of formal banking entirely. By 1921, the PNB had already been badly damaged by a speculative collapse tied to the post-WWI commodity crash, and the bank required a government bailout that year.

The blue seal distinguishes this from the red-seal Treasury Certificate series issued concurrently under different authority. BEP printing throughout, consistent with the colonial administration's preference for Washington-produced currency paper.