20 Centavos

The Mindanao Emergency Currency Board was one of several guerrilla-affiliated currency authorities that issued notes during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. These boards operated under extraordinarily difficult conditions — paper, ink, and printing equipment were either smuggled in, improvised, or salvaged — and the resulting notes often show it. The 1945 date places this issue in the final phase of the occupation, as American forces were already returning to Mindanao and the liberation campaign was well underway.

Saguin, Pacana, and Barbasa signing as Chairman and Members was a deliberate formality: the boards maintained the appearance of institutional legitimacy precisely because their notes needed to function as real currency in local trade.