5 Centavos

One of the more localized guerrilla issues to survive the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, this note was produced by the United States Armed Forces in the Far East volunteer corps operating out of Balangiga — a town already weighted with history from the 1901 massacre that had triggered one of the bloodiest American reprisals of the Philippine-American War. By 1943, USAFFE-affiliated units across Samar and Leyte were printing their own scrip to sustain local economies and pay irregular forces, working with whatever paper and ink they could find.

Balangiga-issued notes are among the rarer provincial guerrilla emissions. Most were redeemed or destroyed after liberation; survival in any condition is genuinely uncommon.