2 Pesos Black

The Leyte Emergency Currency Board was one of several provincial bodies authorized to issue guerrilla currency after the Japanese occupation of the Philippines began in late 1941. These notes circulated in territory where American and Filipino resistance forces still held practical authority, functioning as a parallel economy deliberately kept out of Japanese hands. The occupying administration treated possession of guerrilla currency as a serious offense.

Three signatories — the Provincial Auditor, Treasurer, and Fiscal — were required to authenticate each note, a bureaucratic structure maintained under extraordinary conditions to preserve some semblance of legitimate civil governance.